The Coalition of Aggrieved Teachers of Unpaid Legacy Arrears has challenged the government to publicize the names of teachers it claims have received their legacy arrears.

The group’s reaction follows recent comments by the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has paid monies owed the teachers from the John Dramani Mahama administration to date.

The vice president in July 2020 took to Facebook and wrote “John Mahama’s government was not paying teachers promotion arrears. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government has paid teachers promotion arrears.”

The Vice President at the launch of the NPP manifesto reiterated the same claim and this has provoked a reaction from disgruntled teachers.

President of the Coalition, Abdulai Muniru, wants the Vice President and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to back the said payments with evidence.

“How can the Vice President and the Director-General of the GES claim that government has cleared all arrears? The members of this group are thus shocked to the marrow to hear claims that we have been paid all legacy arrears. We are daring the GES, the Controller and the Accountant General’s Department to, as a matter of urgency, publish the beneficiaries of these paid arrears to prove their case.”

The group is also calling on the President of the Republic of Ghana to “call the GES director to order and direct the settlement of these legacy arrears owed us without any further delay”.

Teacher unions in the country have all on several occasions threatened to lay down their tools from over the failure of the government to pay the legacy arrears.

The arrears, which include over two years’ salary and promotion arrears as well as allowances of some public school teachers have sparked a series of demonstrations in the education sector.