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"It's in Their DNA to Leave Problems Behind" – Rashid Pelpuo Blasts NPP Over Unpaid Nurses Crisis
October 8, 2025
Employment Minister Dr Rashid Pelpuo has accused the New Patriotic Party of deliberately creating a payroll crisis by employing thousands of workers without proper financial planning before leaving office.
Speaking on JoyNews observed by vistanewsgh.com on October 7, the Wa Central MP said the current administration inherited 12,000 new workers who were employed by the previous government without provisions to pay them.
"It's in their DNA to give the incoming government a problem, let them fail, and let the people say that they have failed," Dr Pelpuo said. "This tells the story of what complaints we had when we assumed office—that at the point of exit of the NPP government, they imposed on us 12,000 new workforce that they did not prepare to pay them, didn't have the money to pay them, but employed them."
He added that the previous government also exited without preparing a proper three-month transitional budget that accounted for these new employees.
The Minister was reacting to protests by the Coalition of Unpaid Nurses and Midwives, who marched in Accra on October 2 to demand salaries for nearly 7,000 health workers left unpaid for almost 10 months. The nurses explained that though they were officially posted in December 2024 after financial clearance, many still have not been paid, even though about 6,500 of their colleagues received salaries in April 2025.
Dr Pelpuo said this pattern was not new, recalling how the outgoing Kufuor administration left behind the Single Spine Salary Structure which the late President Atta Mills had to contend with. "So it's like their DNA to give the incoming government a problem," he said.
He criticized the previous administration for making employment decisions based on political motives rather than fiscal responsibility. When asked whether the timing of the recruitment before the 2024 elections was evidence of political calculation, Dr Pelpuo responded, "That's the assumption—that what they are doing, there is some level of political decision tied to it, not necessarily because they wanted to pay them, but just to give them the impression that they too are employed."
"It shows that there had not been preparation. They had been preparing to contest an election," he explained. "Everything that will give them a good image from the side of the young person who is unemployed and looking for a job is what they will do. So they had done this over a period of time, hoping that in a culminating imposition of another 12,000, they would have then won the hearts of the young people and given them another mandate."
Despite the criticism, Dr Pelpuo assured that the government was committed to resolving the issue. "We are not complaining; we are looking at the situation where we can satisfy the will of the people who have given us the mandate," he said. "We acknowledge the fact that young people, as they are, need to start life and need to be comfortable working for what they have been employed to do. So we are doing everything to make it possible that we solve this problem before, maybe before the end of the year."
The unpaid nurses crisis has become a significant challenge for the Mahama administration, with healthcare workers expressing frustration over the prolonged delay in receiving their salaries despite being officially posted and working for months.
