One of the unions of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Innovative Teachers, has released a lot of details surrounding mismanagement by GESOPS and the procurement of the TM1 Laptop.
The Founder of Innovative Teachers, Mr. Stephen Desu, held a press conference on Wednesday 29th March which saw the audience of major media houses.
It was at this meeting he revealed that he had enquired about the dealings of different institutions where GESOPS was one through the Right to Information (RTI) Bill.
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“We filed the Right to Information Request on GESOPS board of trustees, GES, Ministry of Education the and the Controller and Accountant General Department on 6 January, 2023. Ghana Education Service Occupational Pension Scheme responded to us but the rest have refused to respond.” Mr. Desu mentioned.
GESOPS Accused of Mismanaging Teachers’ Second Tier
According to the press statement, from January 2010 to 31st December, 2022 the management of the second tier pension scheme of GES workers has been done in the dark.
National Pension Regulatory Authority and Bank of Ghana failed to publish the bank statement and investment documents covering the funds in the Temporary Pension Fund Account before they handed it over to GESOPS Board of Trustees.
GESOPS was said to be a headline sponsor using their funds to sponsor Ghana Teachers Prize 2022. The responsibilities of the GESOPS board of trustees are stated in section 121 of the National Pension Act, 2008 (Act 766).
These responsibilities have absolutely nothing to do with using pension funds to sponsor any activity. He accused that the headline sponsorship of Ghana Teachers Prize amounted to a haircut of pension funds.
GESOPS board of trustees were said to be demanding Five Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty-Five Ghana Cedis (Ghc5,865.00) in order to prevent Innovative Teachers from getting the information they requested.
Mr. Desu mentioned it is a strategy by the board of trustees to deter teachers
from filing RTI requests in the future so that the opaque nature of management of teachers second tier pension funds will continue.
TM1 Laptop Pre-financing
In the Press statement, Mr. Desu added that the use of GESOPS funds in the manufacturing of the 280,000 laptops when GESOPS was not a party to the contract between Ministry of Education and K.A TECHNOLOGIES gave Innovative Teachers a cause to worry about the future of teachers as far as our pension is concerned.
He also alleged that the board of trustees paid K.A TECHNOLOGIES from a different account which is illegal.
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“The pension law makes it mandatory that the only account that must hold pension funds must be the custodial account (Prudential Bank) and not an unknown account to transact scheme activities. How GESOPS funds ended up in an unknown account is a question for the Board of Trustees to answer.” Mr. Desu emphatically stated.
“The Ghc509 that was deducted from teachers’ Professional Development Allowance we suspect was not deposited in the custodial account (Prudential Bank) but in a different account at Cal Bank.”
“The teachers in primary schools who are more than J.H.S and S.H.S teachers deserve to know why their laptops have not been supplied fifteen months after deduction.
It is disrespectful and gross arrogance on the part of GNAT NAGRAT and CCT to give an illegal consent for the deduction of Ghc509 from teachers’ Professional Development Allowance and remain mute when teachers want answers to the reason why the laptops have not be supplied. If the laptops cannot be supplied the 509 Ghana cedis must be refunded now!”
The use of pension funds to pre-finance the manufacturing of 280,000 laptops and the headline sponsorship of Ghana’s Teachers Prize was misappropriation of pension funds which section 195 of the National Pension Act,2008 (Act 766) makes it a criminal offence.
The Way Forward
He urged all public sector workers to follow keenly the activities of their boards of trustees otherwise our collective well-being as workers will be undermined.
1 comment
No wonder our union leaders are quite. Hypocrite