{"id":219771,"date":"2016-06-05T09:29:09","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T09:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=219771"},"modified":"2016-06-05T09:29:09","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T09:29:09","slug":"govt-suspends-payment-of-salaries-via-e-zwich-after-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=219771","title":{"rendered":"Gov&#8217;t suspends payment of salaries via e-zwich after protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Government has suspended the implementation of a payment schedule for public sector workers via\u00a0the e-zwich payment platform.<\/p>\n<p>The Ministry of Finance had served notice to use the platform as\u00a0payment module for some public sector workers, but <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/05\/07\/dont-pay-us-through-kakai-e-zwich-system-workers-warn\/\">the notice was rejected<\/a><\/strong><\/span> by twelve public sector unions who argued that they were not consulted before the decision\u00a0was\u00a0taken.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;tyKO0mTTS7vB4gbFDFOUqLxOLBiGDRcb&#8221;]The unions also\u00a0contend that the e-zwich payment system is dysfunctional and not easily accessible, and thus cannot be a medium for the payment of salaries.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <strong>Citi News<\/strong>, the Vice President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, said the unions would continue to fight against the payment plan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Workers should be given options<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to him, there is nothing wrong with the e-zwich platform but the workers should be given the right to choose their own mode of payment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe protested on the basis that e-zwich, though it may be good, should not be made compulsory. So it should be optional. Based on that protest, the government suspended the implementation of the policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Carbonu also indicated that his union will continue to fight the seemingly imposition of the\u00a0ezwich payment platform until it is scrapped completely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo for now, as far as I am concerned, the policy is suspended. Our position has not changed. Our position remains that e-zwich is a money card\u2026Yes we support the Idea and the principle that we should make our country a cashless society, but we do not impose one platform on people. There should be options.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Teachers \u2018reject\u2019 payment of salaries via\u00a0E-zwich<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT), had earlier warned of <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/05\/04\/teachers-reject-payment-of-salaries-via-e-zwich\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>labour unrest<\/strong><\/a><\/span> if the Controller and Accountant General\u2019s Department goes ahead to approve the use of the e-zwich \u00a0platform to pay teachers.<\/p>\n<p>According to CCT, the E-zwich payment system is fraught with technical challenges which make it difficult for teachers already on it to access their salaries.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government has suspended the implementation of a payment schedule for public sector workers via\u00a0the e-zwich payment platform. The Ministry of Finance had served notice to use the platform as\u00a0payment module for some public sector workers, but the notice was rejected by twelve public sector unions who argued that they were not consulted before the decision\u00a0was\u00a0taken. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":219779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/219779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}