NDC WILL PAY WITHHELD SALARIES OF TEACHERS (PAGE 14)

Mr John Mahama, the running mate of Professor John Evans Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress(NDC), has assured Ghanaians that the party will on humanitarian grounds consider the release of withheld salaries of teachers who are members of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) when voted back into power.
Addressing journalists at Navrongo as part of his two-day tour of the Upper East Region, Mr Mahama said “we are considering doing this because we think that it was not done fairly”.
“Around the time NAGRAT members went on strike, other professional bodies had also embarked on strike but that treatment was not applied to them”, he explained, adding that “although the new labour law frowns on what the teachers did, we can not discriminate against the teachers and withhold their salaries like that.
“Why should others be paid and others made to suffer? If we want to apply the laws, then we need to release the salaries of teachers and start afresh so that anybody who goes on strike would know that he or she loses his or her salary”, he said.
The tour of the region, his first since he was nominated by the NDC flag bearer, took Mr Mahama to the Bolgatanga, Bongo, Tongo, Talensi-Nabdam, Kassena-Nankana, Builsa districts as well as the “overseas” areas of Yagaba Kobore in the West Mamprusis District of the Northern Region.
He was accompanied by the General Secretary of the party, Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the National Youth Organiser, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Mr Gilbert Iddi and Donald Adabre, former ministers in the NDC administration as well as Regional Executives of the NDC.
Touching on a wide range of issues, Mr Mahama castigated the NPP administration for failing in its poverty eradication programmes.
He argued that the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme as a direct cash transfer system was meant to be a last resort when “you fail in all other options such as micro credit, agriculture extension, subsidies, among others.
According to Mr Mahama, the best way to bring people out of poverty was to empower them and improve their abilities to earn incomes.
“It is when you fail that you dole out direct cash to people. The introduction of LEAP, therefore, signifies a failure on the part of the NPP government”, he said.
He said a new NDC government will focus on increased support for agriculture, particularly in the northern part of the country, to reduce the poverty level and curb the drift to the southern parts of the country by the youth in search of jobs.
He said the NDC would also consider strengthening the sheanut industry not only to create employment but also empower the people.
Asked whether the feeding grant for northern students should be withdrawn and parents made to pay for the feeding of their wards, Mr Mahama, who is also a Member of Parliament for Bole Bamboi, said until incomes were improved it would be impossible to withdraw support for students in the short to medium term.
He called for the introduction of strategic interventions to help address the problem which occurs yearly.
Mr Mahama who also touched on Education, Health, Agriculture, infrastructural development and other sectors of the economy emphasised the need for effective decentralisation, which he said could go a long way to solve the development needs of the northern parts of the country.
“A new NDC offers the best alternative choice for Ghana. We are very much acquainted with the problems of the country and Ghanaians must give us the chance”, he said.