The Federal Government has promised to clear the 36-month salary owed 1,800 teachers of the Unity Schools across the country. Following a report by The Guardian, last week, the government said the files of the affected teachers were already with the Ministry of Finance.
Speaking with The Guardian in Abuja on the sidelines of the inaugural EdTech Conference organised by Mastercard Foundation, Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, assured that the teachers would be paid soon.
He said: “It (the issue) is already with the Budget Office, with Finance. So, hopefully, they will be paid.” On how soon they would be paid, the minister said: “I cannot tell. We do not pay in the Ministry of Education. But we have done the paperwork. It is already in Finance. So, hopefully, very soon they will get their money.”
Last week, The Guardian reported that despite spending N4.3 trillion on personnel budgets in the last six years, the Federal Ministry of Education was owing academic staff of Federal Government Colleges (also known as Unity Schools), three years’ salary worth over N3.4 billion.
Investigation revealed that the teachers numbering over 1,800 are being owed salary and other allowances from 2018 to 2021. Recruited by the Federal Ministry of Education in 2018, 2019 and 2020 as education officers and posted to schools across the country, findings reveal that these workers have yet to be paid their First 28 Days Allowance since their engagement.
In public service, the First 28 Days Allowance covers almost the first month of a new employee’s arrival at his or her duty station. Some of the reasons adduced for the non-payment include logistics challenges encountered at the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) desk of the ministry, and the alleged refusal of the ministry to transmit the files of affected teachers to the Budget Office of the Federation for vetting and onward transfer to the Accountant General’s office for approval.
The post Unity Schools’ teachers will be paid salary arrears soon, says FG appeared first on Guardian Nigeria News.
