The New Patriotic Party has described the decision by the government to restore the payment of allowances to nursing trainees as a desperate move to secure votes for the general elections.

A statement signed by the Health Minister indicated that “the payment amount would serve as a bridging mechanism pending the amendment of the Students Loan Trust Act, to enable students in non-tertiary Health Training Institutions access loans to support their education.”

READ ALSO: Gov’t to pay nursing trainee allowances

But policy adviser of the NPP flagbearer, Boakye Agyarko believes the move is a “pure political gimmick.”

“How come that Asiedu Nketiah has been rubbishing the payment of student allowance? Now a president who has signed an IMF agreement to tighten the belts on the national purse and keeps on reminding the nation that under no circumstance will he allow budget overruns and then suddenly for political gains, does a U-turn through a very obscure statement. It’s a pure political gimmick and I don’t believe that anything will come out of it,” he said on Accra-based Citi FM.

READ ALSO: Trainee nurses demand increase in allowance

He argued that government will not be able to sustain the new measure as it is already overburdened with outstanding payments from other sectors.

“There are newly-hired nurses who have not been paid. There and qualified nurses and teachers who are sitting at home and have not been employed because government doesn’t have the money to employ them. There are Secondary Schools now whose feeding allowances are still outstanding. So what is going to happen to all of them?” he asked.

He said the new policy “is a knee-jerk reaction intended to blunt the very positive response that the nurses and teachers and students are giving to our commitment of restoring their allowances.”