The Ghana Education Service, GES, has agreed to pay Ghc3, 471,240.72 judgment debt secured against the service by some 102 aggrieved unpaid teachers
A Hundred and two (102) aggrieved teachers secured judgment debt of Ghc3,471,240.72 against Ghana Education Service over non-payment of three to four years’ salary arrears.
The plaintiffs across the country sued GES and Attorney General in 2017.
The Koforidua High Court presided by supervising high court judge Justice Gifty Dekyem (Mrs) on December 18, 2020, entered a judgment of Gh3,471,240.72 including costs and interest against GES to be paid to the teachers.
However, after a year of the judgment, GES has failed to pay the judgment debt forcing the plaintiffs to execute the writ of fieri facias to confiscate vehicles of GES including Administrative vehicles in good shapes and buses of some Senior High Schools to auction to defray the debt.
The exercise was carried out with the protection of armed police.
One of the plaintiffs, Effah Darko, said they will employ all legal means to retrieve the monies that they have worked for.
The Vehicles of the Eastern Regional Director and Accountant of GES, as well as Birim South District Director, were impounded on Friday.
In a statement, however, GES said explained that “Before 2017, some people were recruited into GES without Financial Clearance from Ministry of Finance.
These recruitments were done at the District and Regional offices without recourse to the Headquarters.
In 2017, upon an appeal to government through the Minister for Education, the Government decided that the appointments should be formalized and the GES through the MoE applied for Financial Clearance from MoF”.
The statement continued “The Financial Clearance granted by the Ministry of Finance, was with effect from 2017.
The affected staff agreed in principle that they could only be paid from 2017 based on the Financial Clearance.
All the people involved were therefore issued fresh appointment letters which took effect from 2017.
They have since been mechanized and have been receiving their regular salaries”.
According to GES,” Despite the agreement, some of them decided to go to court to claim salaries for work done before 2017.
The court ruled in their favor leading to the seizure of Three GES Vehicles in the Eastern Region.
GES has since retrieved the three vehicles and discussions are going on as to how to pay the judgment debt.
The matter is being handled by the Attorney- General’s Department in Koforidua. A full and detailed statement on the matter will be issued in due course”.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
