The government has paid all arrears owed to 3,000 Arabic teachers engaged to teach in English-Arabic Schools across the country, the Chief Executive Officer of the Zongo Development Fund(ZoDF), Alhaji Sulemana Arafat Abdulai has said.
He told journalists in Accra on Thursday that the Youth Employment Agency(YEA) which is responsible for the payment of the allowances had started disbursing the moneys to the beneficiary Arabic teachers.
Alhaji Abdulai who was briefing journalists about the work of the ZoDF also mentioned that “the ministry and the YEA will soon announce modalities for a re-start of the programme as the two-year contract signed with the current beneficiaries of the programme had come to an end.”
Touching on the fund , Alhaji Abdulai said the ZoDF would construct 30 basic classroom units, three senior high schools classroom units, furnish 50 basic schools in deprived Zongo communities during the year.
He disclosed that the fund would also provide financial support to brilliant but needy students in Zongo communities from basic level to tertiary level.
“It has consequently drafted the Zongo Development Fund Policy on Grants for Educational Support to provide the criteria for the consideration of applications on objective and non-discriminatory basis,” the ZoDF CEO said.
“The grant will be opened to all Ghanaian students living in Zongo communities, who are brilliant but needy and are pursuing full time or part time academic programmes,” he added.
The ZoDF is an agency established under the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development to provide financial resources as an ‘affirmative action’ to undertake development projects in deprived Zongo communities to uplift their well being.
There are about five million people living in such 3,000 Zongo communities across the country.
The ZoDF is currently funding 220 projects, including educational infrastructure across the Zongo communities in the country.
By Salifu Abdul-Rahaman
