Education Minister, Fayval Williams says the nation’s teachers will be paid today.
Teachers’ salaries and retroactive payments have been delayed following their March 13 signing of the government’s offer under the compensation review exercise.
Shaloy Smikle has more in this report.
The delay in paying teachers has left many of them disgruntled and concerned that they’re at risk of incurring late fees and interest on payments which are typically deducted from their monthly salaries.
But speaking on Nationwide This Morning, Minister Williams gave the assurance that the 25-thousand educators would receive their salaries today.
A Ministry bulletin issued on March 21 had promised that salaries would be paid to teachers on that date.
That same bulletin said bursar-paid schools would receive salaries by the end of the business day on March 22.
A later bulletin, sent to bursar paid schools last Thursday, apologized for the delay and promised that payments would be made the following day, March 23.
However, thousands of teachers remained unpaid at the end of the business day.
The Ministry had said it was unable to meet the deadline due to the work involved in calculating and uploading the retroactive amounts plus the new salaries.
Minister Williams explained that it has been difficult for accounting personnel to convert and upload the new salaries for all educators, given that the agreement between the JTA and the government was only signed on March 13.
Shaloy Smikle for Nationwide Radio.
