58,000 health trainees, comprising nurses and midwives, will be paid their allowance of GH¢400 per person, for each of the 10 months of the academic year.

The government has thus committed GHC232 million for the payment of the allowances for the 2017/2018 academic year. This was announced by President Akufo-Addo at a grand event to celebrate the restoration of the allowance in the Brong Ahafo region.

[contextly_sidebar id=”2Kl3xshe0o5ovLpOaCeNjeaTe64i9bj7″]Ahead of the 2016 general election, the NPP promised to reintroduce the scrapped allowance.

On Tuesday, a ceremony was held in Sunyani to officially launch the reintroduction of the allowance, even though payment had begun since September.

In a Facebook post, Mr. Awuku, who doubles as the Board Chairman of the Youth Employment Agency, YEA, said, “With a fulfilled heart, I write once again as one of our major campaign promises; the restoration of the nurses-trainee allowance has been implemented. I thank the president of the Republic, H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo… We greatly commend him for a good work done as he continues to do more.”

“We the youth of Ghana will continue to give him our unflinching support in moving the country forward, as he is a shining example of a political leader who promises and delivers.”

In 2014, the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) scrapped the payment of allowances to trainee nurses on the basis that it disallowed sufficient funds needed to improve infrastructure to accommodate more trainees into the nursing schools.

The restoration of the allowance follows the implementation of the NPP government’s flagship programme, Free SHS – to cater for the tuition, accommodation, and feeding of students in state-owned second cycle institutions across the country.

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By: Marie-Franz Fordjoe/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The President was speaking at the Sunyani Nursing and Midwifery Training College on Tuesday, 10th September, at a ceremony to mark the restoration of the nursing and midwifery training allowances.

“Government will be spending a total of GH¢232,000,000 for this academic year. The E-Zwich platform will be used to effect payment, as it will ensure convenience, prompt payment, and accountability,” he said.

Nana Addo dismissed claims that the decision taken to restore the allowances, which was a main campaign promise of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was mere political rhetoric, campaign talk, and added that wasn’t meant to deceive nursing trainees in order to get their votes.

According to President Akufo-Addo, “it was much more than that. We believed, and still believe, that Ghana needs all the nurses and healthcare workers she can get, if the nation is to have a solid, world-class healthcare system, and we think it necessary to provide the relevant incentives to make that possible.”

Bemoaning the cancellation of the allowances, in 2014, by the government of the former President John Dramani Mahama, President Akufo-Addo noted that, this singular action brought untold hardships to the thousands of nurses and midwives in the country, who depended on it for their studies and for their welfare.

The cancellation of the stipend, according to the President, had left many trainee nurses demotivated and demoralized.

“The New Patriotic Party and I heard your cry, and assured you of the restoration of these allowances, if we won the election. By the grace of God, and by the generosity and trust of the Ghanaian people, I am here, today, as President of the Republic, ready to fulfill the pledge we made to you,” he said, to a rousing applause from the packed auditorium of the school.

The President continued, “To the professional cynics and skeptics, those who have made an industry out of constantly asking ‘is this policy sustainable?’, I wish to assure them that, with the proper management of our public finances, the nation’s budget can accommodate such an amount.”

The implementation of the Free SHS policy, on 12th September, 2017, he added, should be an indicator of the fact that leadership is about choices.

“I have chosen to invest in the education and in the future of our young men and women, and I will use the blessings the Almighty has so amply bestowed on us to this end,” he added.

The payment of the allowances, the President noted, would also not have been possible without the prudent management of the economy.

NHIS, Employment of nurses

The President explained that, it is the judicious application of resources that is heralding the revival of the National Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which has led to the payment of GH¢560 million out of the GH¢1.2 billion debt inherited from the Mahama administration, which was strangling the NHIS.

Government, he added, is committed to paying the balance within the next 12 months, indicating that “in the meantime, payments to service providers in the NHIS are now current, with no arrears being built up.”

President Akufo-Addo added that, it is the work of Ministers like Hon. Kwaku Agyemang Manu, and the brilliant, resourceful Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, that is restoring the health of our public finances, leaving rapidly behind us the era of corruption, incompetence, mismanagement and profligacy that sent us cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for relief.

“We are going to make our public finances robust again, so we can pay our way in the world, like any self-respecting nation should,” he added.

The President revealed that, within the short space of 9 months, Government has employed some 16,000 qualified young nurses and midwives and other health professionals, who, though qualified, had not found employment over the last few years.

Before the year ends, he assured further that additional nurses and midwives will be employed.

“Next year, we plan to employ even more healthcare workers. To your colleagues in private nursing and midwifery training institutions, who have been at home for a number of years, next year our healthcare institutions will begin recruiting them,” he added.

The aim of his government, he stressed, “is to banish the spectre of nurses, midwives and health assistants who are not posted after completion of their courses.”

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The move will ensure transparency, a proper audit and prevent impersonation.

[contextly_sidebar id=”5Iou4aAsQX8QeaeVkMG9GekExCIlxvmN”]The payment of the allowance to the trainees has been handed over to the Student Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), the body mandated to disburse loans to tertiary students.

The SLTF has been using the e-zwich to disburse students’ loan over the years, and is also using the same system to pay the trainee nursing and teachers allowance.

The use of e-zwich to disburse such funds is also expected to inculcate in the students, the habit of using electronic payment cards and eventually discourage the over reliance on cash for transactions.

Commenting on the development, the Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), Mr. Archie Hesse, commended government for allowing these payments to be made through e-zwich.

He said the move is in furtherance of the cash-lite agenda, and urged the students not to only receive the electronic funds on the card, but to also use the card to make payment and transfer of funds.

The GhIPSS has been setting up agents to offer e-zwich services to complement the financial institutions in order to make the service readily available to the teaming number of people, who now use it. A number of banks’ Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), are also being reconfigured to accept e-zwich cards, just to increase the number of channels through which e-zwich can be accessed.

Mr. Hesse said GhIPSS will continue to work to ensure that e-zwich card holders enjoy smooth service at all times. He explained that there are designated staff, who visit the agents, the financial institutions and the ATMs to ensure efficient delivery of service.

The GhIPSS Boss urged the banks to see the payment of nursing and teacher trainee allowance as an opportunity for them to win over new depositors.

He therefore challenged them to find innovative ways to make the use of e-zwich cards an enjoyable experience that will endear students to the banks.

Currently, student loans, National Service allowance, Youth Employment Agency remunerations and the various government social intervention programmes are carried out through the e-zwich with the nursing and teacher trainee allowance being the latest.

This implies that huge sums of transactions will be done through the e-zwich.

Mr. Hesse also urged shop owners to get hybrid Point of Sales (POS) devices in their shops so that they can also tap into the phenomenal growth that the e-zwich is experiencing.

The hybrid POSes accept both e-zwich and domestic cards.

Mr. Hesse said GhIPSS on its part, will continue to promote the biometric smart card and all other electronic payment channels to ensure that Ghana truly migrates into an electronic payment society.

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Source: GNA

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More than 90,000 officials have been deployed across the country, which is recovering from 27 years of war.

The process is reported to have started smoothly in the capital, Luanda.

Following fears that criminals could impersonate census officials to gain entry to people’s homes, residents have been urged to be wary about opening their doors.

Angola’s National Statistics Institute director Camilo Ceita also said that no census-taker would knock on their doors at night to collect data.

Officials hope that having accurate information about the population will help the government improve its planning and provision of services.

The BBC’s Zenaida Machado says a team of census officials has gone to the airport to collect information from travellers who are going away for the next two weeks, while the survey is being carried out.

The authorities say the long conflict and “other post-war priorities” – which our reporter says could have included securing the peace and improving the infrastructure – have made it impossible for the census to take place before now.

The process is estimated to cost about $200m (£120m).

The World Bank estimates that Angola’s population at about 21 million.

When the last census was carried out in 1970, the population was around six million.

The results of the present count are expected in several months’ time.

Angola is Africa’s second biggest oil producer. It has a small number of extremely wealthy people but most of its people live in poverty.

Source: BBC

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