Sh 67.3 billion teachers’ arrears undergoing verification

The Controller and Auditor General (CAG) is set to validate teachers’ salary and other allowance arrears amounting to sh67.3billion to facilitate their payment by the Treasury, the House heard yesterday.

Deputy Minister in the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government, Selemani Jaffo, told parliamentarians that there were anomalies which had been detected and called for CAG’s verification to determine the actual debt.

According to the deputy minister, the debt registered by his office as of April 19, this year, stood at Sh67.3billion, of which Sh17.5billion is for allowance arrears and Sh49.8billion being salary arrears.

“The government is verifying all the teachers’ arrears pending payment. All teachers under local government authorities whose payments have not been made will be paid after verification,” the minister said in response to a basic question from Special Seats MP Aida Joseph Khenani (Chadema).

The lawmaker raised concern as to when the government was set to pay all pending teachers’ arrears which had turned to be a major problem in the country.

In her supplementary question, the MP asked for clarification about the strategy being used by the state to address the problem.

Jaffo, in response, said the government has been paying all teachers’ arrears and that last October Sh20.125billion was paid.

“An additional Sh1.17billion was paid in February, this year,” he said.

But the deputy minister said it was not all the Sh67.3billion demanded by teachers was genuine debt, considering the number of ghost workers who were yet to be removed from the payroll.

He ordered local councils in the country to make immediate verification of teachers who had not been paid for them to be promptly paid.

He said his office had set April 15 as deadline for submission of names of teachers who had overdue payments, but unfortunately only nine regions had heeded the call.

He named regions which had submitted the claims as Mbeya, Mara, Tanga, Iringa, Kigoma, Arusha, Lindi, Mtwara and Kilimanjaro.