It seems as if we do not respect order until threats are issued.
A little while ago, unpaid teachers expressed their anger by embarking upon demonstrations to demand what legitimately belongs to them.
Unfortunately, the Ghana Education Service attempted to gag them by misrepresenting their approach as an affront to discipline and directed they abandon the industrial action and seek dialogue.
There were veiled threats of sanctions if they continued on the path of insults and foul language against public officials.
Thankfully, the teachers, whose salaries have been in arrears for about 17 months, did not relent, and their actions have paid off with the announcement by the GES to liquidate the arrears in tranches of four months over a four-month period beginning from May.
Last week, the Ministry of Education and the GES met the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), which was reported to have ended inconclusively.
The reaction from CHASS was simple and straightforward; if money is not released, there will be a closure of senior high and technical schools throughout the country.
The concomitant is that money has purportedly been released to be disbursed to the schools to avoid the forced closure, especially as final-year students embark upon their final West African Senior School Certificate Examinations.
Akan proverb
There is an Akan proverb that “if you do not talk about your head whilst being shaved, you will be shaved shabbily”.
Thus, members of CHASS, whose heads would be put on the chopping board when students embark upon demonstrations, have shouted about their problem and their cry has been heard with the proffering of a solution.
But in their cry, their spokesman admitted that there were food items such as rice and maize in stock but what was missing was the accompaniment which made for food to be served on the table.
But that is where CHASS must open up and admit that what they need is more than funds for vegetables.
They were asked to purchase food items for the schools last November and they have not been paid for.
Caged
For some time, CHASS appeared to have been caged. But that was not the situation until the introduction of the Free SHS programme.
In those days, CHASS members in the north of the country, comprising the Northern (now Northern, North East and Savannah) Upper East, Upper West and portions of the now Oti and Boni East regions, who benefitted from the Northern Scholarship Scheme, never hesitated in closing down the schools whenever the scholarship funds delayed.
That also prompted disparity in the attendance of school between students in those parts of the country as against their counterparts in the remaining regions.
However, the free SHS programme has endured the elimination of that discrimination in school attendance. Free SHS seemed to have cowed CHASS into submission.
Members of CHASS must reclaim and regain their voices and they must speak not only for their rations but also for their food suppliers, who, after supplying the food items, are not paid for months.
It may be true that CHASS is not a party to contracts between National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) and the Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX), but it will be on their head if the students demonstrate because of lack of food.
The suppliers meet them and tell them about their harrowing situations.
They hear of suppliers who have died prematurely due to pressure from unpaid supplies.
Indeed, food items supplied in the last quarter of 2024 have not been paid for.
It cannot be justified that the government would claim to have paid for outstanding arrears owed suppliers under the Free Senior High School programme, when food items supplied in 2024, which have been confirmed by audit, commissioned by the government in 2025, are still outstanding, when all indications are that the economy is growing.
Somewhere last year, President John Mahama promised that once the audit ordered by the government into arrears carried from 2024 was confirmed by the audit reports, payments would be effected.
The Ministry of Finance recently rushed to Parliament to inform our people that certain claims made as part of the arrears from 2024 could not be justified and had been rejected.
Well-meaning Ghanaians supported the decision and called for the prosecution of all those involved in the presentation of false claims.
Why did we rush to announce the rejected claims but have neglected to pay the legitimate ones at a time that the economy is doing well?
Do we have to accumulate foreign reserves and abandon those individuals, many of them micro and small-scale entrepreneurs, to suffer or die poor but being owed by the state?
The irony is that both NAFCO and who have been engaged by the Ministry of Education through the GES, for the food supplies, in their contract with the suppliers, promise to pay within 60 days and yet, for 18 months, suppliers have not been paid because of a change of government.
Unlike road contractors whose arrears attract interest from government, the suppliers have no such relief.
When we do such things we undermine one anoither whilst professing to be open and transparent.
If funds from the Ghana Education Trust Fund can be used to procure food items for senior high/technical schools currently why cannot the same source be applied to settle the arrears for supplies made to the same schools in 2024?
In 2023, when suppliers under the free SHS programme invaded the premises of the NAFCO, we saw the hapless and helpless suppliers sleeping on the compound; the whole nation rose and decried the situation.
The Speaker of Parliament then and now, Rt Hon A.S.K. Bagbin, did not sleep.
He went to the place, spoke to the management and eventually the government released money and developed a timetable to pay all the arrears.
Is it that the suppliers have been ignored because they are not shouting but have been diligent and patient?
The audits were concluded around May and the reports submitted to government around July 2025, yet we are nearing the end of April 2026, and the suppliers have not received any payments.
If, on the other hand, NAFCO and GCX have been paid and they have taken the suppliers for granted, then the government must tell the people of Ghana so that we can advise the suppliers where to carry their battle.
Loyal supporters
We should not wait for the suppliers, some of whom are loyal supporters of both the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party, to embark upon demonstrations to demand their pound of flesh before the President intervenes to direct the Minister of Finance to settle all legitimate arrears for supplies under the Free SHS programme.
We must pay them now, for no Ghanaian is more Ghanaian than the other on the basis of any description.
That could amount to discrimination as captured under Article 17(2) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh