Delay in teachers’ salaries…Ministry says oversight was cause of the hiccup

Patrick Faber

Primary school teachers across the country, employed under the Catholic Public Schools system, are tonight awaiting the processing of salaries through their respective banks, following a delay in the payment schedule for the month of September.  Wages are often deposited by the last Friday of every month; however, a problem with the payroll, which went by undetected, was subsequently identified by the Treasury Department.  The glitch was noticed during a final check, prior to the processing of salaries, forcing the Catholic Public Schools, the Ministry of Education and the Treasury Department to rectify the issue over the weekend.  According to Minister of Education Patrick Faber, all parties involved in the process have been working diligently in order to meet a deadline of October first.

Patrick Faber, Minister of Education

“What has happened is the submission of the payroll made by the Roman Catholic Management for this month had some errors. What normally happens is that those teachers who were on study leave and receiving eighty percent of their salary; they needed to receive permission from the Teaching Services Commission to put them back to a hundred percent. Of course you know this is the start of the school year so this would be the first month that they would receive back their full salary. And as I understand it that was not done and when it was sent to the ministry of Education for checking, it was missed as well. And when it went to the treasury, they found that these discrepancies existed and so that had to be corrected and that is rally the cause of the delay. In terms of blame, I think it needs to be shared. The management our ministry and also to an extent the treasury because my understanding from the people who work in my ministry, on occasions before, where that kind of change that does not come with the proper authorization occurs; that they would process…they would pay the eighty percent and not pay the twenty percent and then later on rectify it. On this instance now, I am told that they asked for it to be sent back which delayed the entire payroll for the Roman Catholic management and that was indeed unfortunate. I am told though that certainly by four this evening that all the payments have been made and that teachers can look forward to collecting their salaries tomorrow. Of course our release also says that we are giving the time off in the rural areas; the entire day, ad in the urban areas, a half day for teachers to collect their salaries and for them to do their business transactions which of course you know has become more now being that they would have to go into the banks and work out whatever difficulties they incurred.”