Kwadwo Nyamekye Hits Back At Mintah Akandoh Over Nurses Recruitment
Kwadwo Nyamekye is a Stalwart member of the New Patrotic Party (NPP) has criticized the Member of Parliament for the Juaboso Constituency, Hon. Kwabena Minitah Akandoh for his assertions on the nurses recruitment matter.
He questioned Kwabena Mintah Akandoh that, if he’s genuinely committed to knowing exactly what election/political gimmick recruitment means, he should go back to 2016, when his beloved NDC was in power. Recruitment for 2015 batch of Certificate nurses (NAC and NAP) started in the first week of December 2016; some few days to the election, without any credible financial clearance. But recruitment process halted shortly after they lost the election.
Government later decided to post these nurses after they had lost the election, to burden the yet to be formed Akufo Addo government, with unbudgeted financial commitments, which was quite late. The then new government later found out that there wasn’t any substantive financial allocations to pay those batch of nurses at the time, which the outgoing Mahama government wanted to recruit.
According to him, recruitment process continued after the then new administration secured Financial clearance, and captured it in the first budget of this current npp government. Which made it possible for those certificate nurses to be posted/recruited in April 2017. Meaning if this recruitment had completed under the Mahama government, those nurses would have had to work for years before their salaries were paid.
He reminded Mintah Akandoh that, Mahama stated emphatically that, he was not going to continue with payment of allowances to both Teacher and Nursing students, even if he had to lose the election. But few months to the election, his government started paying allowances to student nurses on table top without bonding them; bear in mind, 2014 batch of admitted certificate student nurses had already completed school; so they were never paid any allowances, they painfully remain as at now, the only batch of nurses who never received allowances from any government; in fact, they weren’t bonded at all.
Even student nurses who were admitted in August 2013 to be trained in various institutions; specifically for certificate nurses, who also had a BOND with government to be paid allowances had to wait until late 2015 until they received their allowances; over two years of being in school, that particular batch of certificate nurses had already completed school. They paid this allowance because of the BOND, since government knew that failure to pay the allowances could have led to a judgement debt against the government; the main reason why he first started with cancelling the BONDING. For the records, cancellation of trainee allowance started from the 2014/2015 academic year, so it didn’t affect student nurses who were admitted in 2013; since that decision didn’t have any retrospective effect on the 2013 admitted students.
The current 2-3years wait after completion of training specifically for certificate nurses started from the Mahama government; when the then government failed to post certificate nurses who completed school in 2014 and ready for recruitment in 2015 were rather posted in 2016; 2014-2016; it continued for certificate nurses who completed in 2015 to be posted in 2017; 2015-2017; and that tradition of delayed postings has come to stay.
This is the real meaning of Election/Political gimmick recruitment, which happened under his own ndc government.
We live to learn, my thoughts though.
Kwadwo Nyamekye Bigbrain
Grandma’s Grave.
