The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has commended Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta for rendering an unqualified apology all public sector workers whose names were mistakenly removed from government’s payroll.
Vice President of NAGRAT, Angel Kabonu said the Finance Minister has earned his respect by accepting his mistake.
The Finance Minister at the National Policy Forum on Monday, May 15, 2017, in Accra, regretted the error and promised to fix the problem.
This was a massive uproar that greeted the denial of more than 26,000 public workers their pay, due to their failure to undergo biometric registration.
They were declared ghosts on the payroll and therefore removed. Some unions have threatened to go to court over the matter.
Mr. Ofori-Atta in response said “Quite a number of people were taken off the payroll [and] we’ve had remarks from some unions. We know that there’s some rot in there, we have to take an action and in the process of taking an action a few wrong eggs would be broken and we should apologise for that,”.
Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme Monday, Mr. Kabonu was full of praise for the Finance Minister.
He noted that, the apology is an indication that “the exercise was not carried out with the intention of victimizing people”.
The NAGRAT vice chairman maintained that the exercise is a useful one and must be supported by all Ghanaians.
Angel Kabonu pledged their support to help government rid the payroll of ghost names to accelerate Ghana’s development.
Also, the Ghana Medical Association also accepted the apology by the Finance Minister.
General Secretary, Dr. Justice Yankson urged government to quicken the process to ensure their members are paid at the end of the month.