The Coalition said the economic situation of Trainees had worsened due to the failure of government to pay their seven months allowance after the government had asked them to remain at post.

In a press statement signed by Frank Quansah, the National Secretary for NABCO Trainees, and copied to the Ghana News Agency, the Coalition said the hope of Trainees in their career exit pathway had been curtailed owing to the delay by government to migrate them into permanent mainstream work.

The Coalition said all efforts to get the government to fulfill its promise and pay an accrued sum of 4,900 Ghana Cedis to each trainee had been fruitless and stated the resolve of the Trainees to demonstrate in demand of their allowances.

“We have been crippled and left penniless and highly indebted and, therefore, demand that the government pays all the arrears due us before 10th June, 2022 and also make sure that the promise for permanent jobs is fulfilled immediately for trainees to exit the scheme peacefully,” the statement said.

This is per a letter written by the Ministry’s Human Resource Manager on behalf of the Minister, notifying all Registrars of the NABCO trainees’ status.

The letter served as a reminder to all registrars that the programme had expired at the end of October 2021, and as such, all trainees were to vacate their posts.

The letter has come on the back of confusion that had rocked a similar directive last year when the National Coordinator of NABCO, Dr Ibrahim Anyars, had announced that there would be no extension of the three-year contract of the trainees only for a counter directive to be issued later.

“Following a high-level stakeholder meeting with the lead NABCO Module Implementation Partners (MIPs) led by His Excellency, the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana and The Honourable Chief of Staff, all NABCO trainees are required to remain at post,” the counter letter stated.

In the case of the latest directive, however, a Deputy Registrar of NABCO had copiously minuted on the letter on January 25, 2022, saying “write to inform the NABCO trainees accordingly”.

It is not yet clear if the said letter “to inform the NABCO trainees accordingly” has been written except to say that the designated recipient of the minute wrote, “noted sir”.

More soon…

According to the Coalition, none of its members who applied for recruitment sometime in November 2019 have been recruited as part of the 145,000 that were employed.

The Coalition’s convener, Johnson Fiifi Baffoe Essilfie, has, in a statement issued on the matter said they could not allow the huge sums of money spent on university education go waste.

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“All we know and have been trained to do and can do is to teach. Our certificates together with our license from the National Teaching Council (NTC) can only be used to teach,” it lamented.

“The huge sums of money spent on university education and money used in writing the licensure exams was not for fun,” the statement said in part.

The Coalition said it is the belief a trainee from a College of Education is not better than a trainee from the UCC, UEW, UDS et al.

See full statement below;