Accountant General's action harsh-NAGRAT

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March 4, 2008

THE National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has described the decision of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) to deduct the overpaid salary arrears of teachers from their February salaries as harsh.
NAGRAT said the action by the CAGD would create hardship for the affected teachers.
The President of NAGRAT, Mr Kwame Alorvi, who said this in an interview, noted that the association had planned to suggest to the CAGD to deduct the money over a six-month period when it got wind of the problem.
He said the problem was not the fault of teachers and so they should not be punished for it.
He stated that apart from the fact that the deduction would affect the March salaries of affected teachers, it would worsen the plight of the teachers over the period.
Mr Alorvi said when the salary negotiation for 2007 was concluded, the government paid 90 per cent of the negotiated salary, leaving a remainder of 10 per cent, which was paid later in January instead of December.
Explaining what accounted for the problem, he said in the process of keying in the data on teachers, a power outage occurred and when it was restored, it was realised during the re-keying that some of the names of teachers were captured twice.
“That was what I was told,” he said, adding that the association was, therefore, expecting a meeting on how the monies were going to be deducted from the salaries of those who were overpaid.
Mr Alorvi indicated that “we were going to suggest that the deduction be done over a period of six months, but a meeting was not convened on the matter”.
He disagreed with the Controller and Accountant General that the system could not spread the overpayment over months, since it was being operated manually.
He said it was only last Thursday that the Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports told him that the CAGD had decided to deduct the monies in February and March.
Mr Alorvi said when he got to the Ghana Education Service (GES) he was given the names of 19,000 teachers who were to forgo their salaries in February and March.
He, however, appealed to teachers to remain calm.
The Daily Graphic in its Saturday, March 1, 2008 edition, published that about 19,000 teachers who were overpaid salary arrears in January as a result of data error into the national payroll system were to refund the amount involved through direct deduction from their February salaries.
The Controller and Accountant General, Mr Christian Sottie, told a workers’ durbar at Ho that the system could not spread the overpayment over months and that those who enjoyed the payment should be well-informed of what was ahead of them.