info@businessghana.com
The government is to recruit 50,000 teachers and 10,000 non-teaching staff this year, the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has told Parliament.
He said the recruitment process would begin as soon as the Minister of Finance issued financial clearance.
“We intend to recruit as many as 50,000 and 10,000 which was provided for in the 2025 budget statement of Finance Minister,” he said.
Responding to an urgent question on the floor of Parliament, Mr Iddrisu said “The Finance Minister said once the Auditor-General is done with the validation of some papers, he will give financial clearance to many other ministries to do some recruitment
“We will begin the process after the mid-year review of the 2025 budget,” he said.
He disclosed this when he answered a question by the Member of Parliament for Komenda/Edina/Eguafo/Abrem, Samuel Atta-Mills, who asked why some teachers did not have staff ID numbers and had not been paid for several months.
Responding, the minister said the concern of non-payment of teachers had been “burning” at the moment at the Ghana Education Service Headquarters and the Ministry of Education.
He said his understanding was a group of the recruited teachers under very different leaderships decided to picket at the GES headquarters and to assure.
He assured the House that there was no manhandling of any of the group.
He, however, said it was regrettable that some of “our countrymen and women” who had subscribed to and were willing to contribute to the training of citizens as teachers, especially those at the pre-tertiary level, did not have staff numbers and their salaries had not been paid.
He said the Minister of Finance in the year 2024 issued financial clearance for the recruitment of teachers
However, he said the GES was unable to complete the process for the entire recruits to be placed on government payroll prior to the expiration of the financial clearance at the end of the year 2024.
“The expiration of clearance prior to the completion of the recruitment process, Mr Speaker, was partly due to delays caused by inconsistencies in SSNIT numbers.
“There are some who have dates of birth on their national ID cards not consistent with their SSNIT details and that is important for us because we need to make a policy determination when the person may retire from the public service and were guided by the information that is shared with us,” he said.
Mr Iddrisu pointed out that the ministry’s data showed that 2,643 newly recruited teaching and non-teaching staff did not have the staff IDs.
He added that 2,650 teachers were recruited from the universities but could not complete the salary input before the year ended.
Besides, he said 298 diploma teachers were recruited but could not complete the salary input process before the year ended December 2024.
“Mr Speaker, additionally 2,113 graduates were recruited and assigned staff IDs but could not complete the salary input process before the year ended.
“Additionally, the minister said 2,113 graduates were recruited and assigned staff IDs but could not salary input process for the year ended, he added.
The phenomenon of ghost names on payroll, he said the GES had completed data validation and was awaiting financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance to put them on payroll.
