About 28,000 Ghana Education Service staff awaiting promotion salary arrears may have to wait until November for payment because their records have not been validated, Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu has said.
52,000 paid, 28,000 pending
Iddrisu said the government paid promotion arrears to 52,000 staff whose records had been validated on Oct. 16, out of about 80,000 people seeking payment. The remaining cases include some non-teaching staff. That means about 65% of those seeking payment have received it.
He spoke on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday, urging the affected staff to remain calm and keep working, and asking teachers not to resume a strike while the government works to settle the arrears.
Not all of the affected staff may get their arrears with October salaries, he said, and the government may make a supplementary payment or push the payments into November.
Delay blamed on administrative difficulties
Iddrisu attributed the delay largely to administrative difficulties involving the Ghana Education Service and the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department. He said the government would discuss with union leaders whether to make a supplementary payment or schedule the outstanding amounts for later in November.
He said his office would meet teacher union leaders Tuesday to resolve outstanding validation issues, and that the outstanding payments could be reprocessed with the aim of paying by mid-November or the end of November. The government is also weighing a supplementary allocation to pay the outstanding arrears alongside fresh processing of the claims.
GES sets Nov. 16 date
The Ghana Education Service later announced that outstanding promotion arrears for staff promoted in 2025 are expected to be paid on Nov. 16. The payment system is scheduled to reopen Wednesday, Oct. 28, so required inputs can be processed, it said. The GES date falls within the minister’s mid-November target.
The service also said it would rectify discrepancies identified in the payments made on Oct. 16, and asked regional directors to inform staff awaiting arrears.
Strike suspended
The latest development follows the suspension of industrial action by teachers over delays in paying promotion arrears. Teacher unions had earlier given the government a Sept. 24 deadline to resolve the issue. Teachers in Greater Accra resumed work after the strike was suspended, according to MyJoyOnline.
It also comes after Iddrisu earlier assured teachers that promotion arrears would be paid by Oct. 30, 2026.
Minority lawmakers, who welcomed the suspension of the strike, have demanded timely payment of promotion arrears, while a National Democratic Congress communicator blamed documentation and payroll validation for the delay. The Council of State has urged sustained dialogue and negotiations as teachers resume work.
The unions’ reaction to the revised timeline was not immediately reported.
