By Karimatou Jallow
The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education has explained debacle surrounding the unpaid Covid-19 allowance of the striking teachers.
As noted, teachers in public schools across the country that are demanding for their Covid-19 allowances yesterday launched an indefinite countrywide.
Commenting on this ugly situation, Mr Louis Moses Mendy told reporters that “this is just a percentage that was not being able to pay on matters of the administrative issues at the payment point which is outside the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education,” he disclosed.
“The government did its best by providing the funds and the MoBSE also did its best by processing the payments, however, when it got to the payment point there were some issues and that led to the delay. And the close of books and also the over leaping of imputation in terms of imputing the pay into the system which couldn’t be done into the system last month,” he explained.
The PS went on in his explanation that this is not accurate and they should generalized it some regions are paid which is just some schools in region one and that too is as a result that their data was received early. He said they were process early, authenticated early and approved but those data that came late couldn’t be process early because they need to verify whatever comes to ensure that before they authorise payment as an accounting officers or accountable sector they will have to ensure that it’s accurate, so this is what led to the late payment of those who summit their dates (data) late.
“I did not threaten any teacher my aim was to know those who were affected (not paid), to ensure that there is learning in schools and I also engaged their administration to find out who were those that are not paid so that I could get the list and compare it to what we have and ensure that the payment could be processed,” he added.
He also said that quiet numbers of teachers are paid as they got the dates (data) from schools, He encouraged teachers to not act outside of their normal regulations.