NLC explains delay in payment of teachers’ salaries

THE Nigeria Labour Congress has attributed the delay in the payment of salaries of the 13,000 teachers newly recruited by the Rivers State Government to the failure of the Post-Primary Schools Board to submit their names to a biometric data.

The state NLC Chairman, Dr. Chris Oruge, stated this at a briefing organised by the NLC and the Trade Union Congress in Port Harcourt on Thursday.

According to him, other teachers whose boards had organised the biometric exercise for them had since received their salaries.

Oruge explained that labour and the state government had agreed on use of biometric data to ensure that salaries were paid without delay.

He pointed out that any worker that wanted to be paid salary in the state should be captured in the state database after being employed.

“There is something we introduced in this state. We labour met with government when our salaries could not be paid due to fraud and the state government and labour agree that we should go into biometric.

“Anybody who wants to be paid salary in this state must first of all be captured and there is database; all records, everything about you will be there. So, what delayed the payment of the 13,000 teachers was that they were not captured on time.

“The boards, especially the Post-Primary Schools Board, refused to submit the list of those newly employed. The UBE submitted earlier and all the teachers recruited under it have been paid their salaries.

“Now, we have entered into post-primary level and the board is now doing their biometric. As they finished the biometric, they take their data to the Payroll Department of the Ministry of Finance and we are very much aware of that,” Oruge added.

Meanwhile, Governor Rotimi Amaechi has said that 10,000 of the 13,000 teachers recruited by his administration have been paid, adding that the remaining 3,000 will be paid this month.

The governor, who gave this assurance during the May Day celebration in Port Harcourt on Thursday, said the state government would gradually pay the affected teachers their salary arrears.