In Ghana, Finance Ministry’s statement on education service recruitment challenged
In Ghana, Yaw Opoku Mensah, spokesperson for former Education Minister Yaw Osei Adutwum, challenged the Finance Ministry’s statement that thousands of Ghana Education Service (GES) staff were recruited in 2024 without financial clearance. According to him, the ministry’s own documents confirm that such clearance was granted.
As MyJoyOnline reports, the Finance Ministry said that in 2025 the government inherited 6,300 GES staff who had been recruited the previous year without financial approval. The ministry stated that Cabinet approval was later obtained to resolve the payroll issue, while financial clearance was issued in four batches. According to the ministry, all 6,300 employees covered by this procedure were paid their salaries.
Finance Ministry letter
Opoku Mensah rejected claims that the hiring took place outside financial clearance. He said that the details of every employee had been entered into the GES register.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
The spokesperson referred to a Finance Ministry letter dated May 10, 2024, which authorized the education minister to recruit 2,000 graduate teachers to strengthen the staffing of the Ghana Education Service. The document also instructed the GES director-general to process the documents of new employees and promptly enter them into the mechanized payroll system.
Salary payment conditions
The letter stipulated that the appointment date could not be earlier than August 1, 2024. The Controller and Accountant-General’s Department was to pay salaries and make the necessary statutory deductions. The authorization was valid until December 31, 2024.
The former minister’s spokesperson called these documents official records that can be verified by state institutions and accused the current administration of trying to shift responsibility for payment problems onto the previous government. At the same time, the Finance Ministry insists that all employees under the special procedure have already received their salaries and advised those with unresolved salary or arrears issues to contact GES.
