GNAT Chairman not impressed with 2019 budget statement
The Bolgatanga Municipal Chairman of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr Charles Ateem, has expressed disappointment in the 2019 budget statement presented to Parliament on Thursday.
He said the budget “did not touch base with the needs of teachers and the ordinary Ghanaian”.
According to him, government’s inability to implement the Mortgage and Housing Fund project to make acquisition of houses affordable to teachers and the less privileged as stated in the 2017 budget made the 2019 budget statement not trustworthy.
Mr Ateem, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Bolgatanga indicated that, “the mortgage and housing fund has been one of the targets of GNAT and now that they cannot boast of even passing it into law and they are saying that all these things would be done in 2019, how sure are we that it would be done?”
The Chairman was reacting to the 2019 budget and economic policy statement presented to Parliament by the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, which projected the economy to grow by 7.6 percent.
The GNAT Chairman said the budget statement failed to include education as part of its systematic areas and indicated that teacher motivation was not considered as well, especially in the northern part of the country.
“When you look at the budgetary allocation to education, when you come to the northern sector there are whole lot of things that are expected of them to capture in the budget especially with the Northern Development Authority.
“Unlike the Central belt, they mentioned teachers’ quarters as part of the Middle Belt Authority. In the case of the Northern Development Authority they never mentioned anything concerning teacher accommodation.
“The only thing they talked about was building classrooms and dormitories, meanwhile when the condition of the teacher is not taken into consideration the teacher will not be able to deliver,” he stressed.
In terms of industrialization, he lamented that the Upper East Region was neglected, adding, “I was also expecting to hear something about the revival of the Pwalugu Tomato Factory but it was not mentioned.”
He explained that the factory was revamped by former President Kufuor but was later closed down during former President Mills’ era, and it was the expectation of the people of the Region that the factory would be revamped into full operations to create jobs and improve on livelihoods.
Even though Mr Ateem commended government for introducing the Free Senior High School and the Nation’s Builders Corps (NABCO) among others as social intervention programmes, he admonished government to tackle the high cost of living among the people in the country.
Source: GNA