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Inter-ministerial meeting to discuss teachers salary delay
2006-01-19 08:59:06
By Patrick Kisembo
President Jakaya Kikwete has given approval for a consultative inter-ministerial meeting to discuss teachers’ problems, among them, salaries disbursement delays.
The President was responding to a petition by Education and Vocational Training Minister, Margaret Sitta, who appealed for his intervention to solve perennial delays in remittance of teacher’s salaries.
The minister made the passionate appeal on Tuesday, while briefing the head of state, on the developments in the ministry.
However, while acknowledging that the delay of teachers’ salaries was a serious problem, the President blamed the anomaly on the teachers themselves and the officials of the ministry.
The special consultative parley would include ministries of Finance, Public Service Management and Governance, Regional Administration and Local Governments, Disaster Management and the host Education and Vocational Training.
During the occasion, the minister acknowledged that, it was pertinent salaries for the newly employed, and the long serving teachers should be disbursed on time to avoid inconveniences.
’It is a complex issue. In Bagamoyo town, teachers are paid before 30th of every month, but in the same district, at Chalinze they are paid mid the following month. No credible explanation is given for the problem,’ said the President noting he had witnessed all this himself.
The President said most education officers at the district and regional levels were teachers by profession and they were making their colleagues in schools to suffer.
While giving a nod for an inter-ministerial parley, Kikwete was upbeat noting:
’I think that will provide a good opportunity for the ministries to evaluate their capacities.’
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