The Chief Executive Officer of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), Dr George Smith-Graham, has proposed a regional approach to processing teacher promotions to prevent delays in the payment of promotion-related arrears.

According to him, processing promotion data for teachers across the entire country at once creates a significant administrative burden and can contribute to delays.

Speaking on JoyNews’ The Pulse, Dr Smith-Graham said: “I believe that going forward maybe Ghana Education Service can consider looking at possibly doing their promotions at regional levels.”

He explained that under such an arrangement, authorities could complete the processing of teachers in one region, clear the payments and then move to the next region.

Dr Smith-Graham said the current system, which involves compiling promotion data from across the country, can become overwhelming and slow down the payment process.

He was responding to concerns over outstanding promotion arrears owed to teachers, which have become one of the key issues in the ongoing dispute between government and the teacher unions.

The FWSC CEO also sought to clarify that the delays did not mean no work had been done on the promotion claims.

He said the data initially available to the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department had been processed and those captured by the available data had been paid, while additional claims subsequently emerged.

Dr Smith-Graham said the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department is now working through the additional claims and would need to prepare supplementary payment vouchers after completing the validation process.

He said a more decentralised approach to processing promotions could help prevent similar delays in the future.