Banks leave teachers with zero balance

Customers in a banking hall. Bank of Uganda uses unclaimed accounts to offset costs of supervising financial institutions. FILE PHOTO

By Richard Otim

In Summary

It was not all good for teachers who had taken loans as all their money was cleared out, the banks going ahead to charge them default fees.

Ngora - Tony Ogaino, a primary school teacher in Ngora District, is servicing a loan and had hoped that when his salary was paid, he would be able to pay off the arrears and still have something for other needs, but this never happened.

To his shock, the much anticipated relief never came to pass as the government had promised.

“There was nothing left for me in the account. The bank took everything and I wonder why the government deceived us that they were sending all the arrears,” the teacher, who asked not to be named, said.

Like many others who had anticipated their pay since May, Ogaino received just one-month salary and could not take anything home as the whole of it had been deducted in loan recovery for the two months he had defaulted.

The outcry is wide spread among rural primary school teachers in particular, most of whom received only one-month salary while there were others who received as much as Shs1 million in their accounts.

Civil servants had not received salaries since May due to wage shortfall in the Budget but the commercial banks and microfinance institutions would not consider leniency for any defaulting and some banks fined as much as Shs8,000 per day.

Yesterday, Mr James Tweheyo, the Unatu general secretary, said some teachers were still struggling to make ends meet.

“We have been promised latest Monday to clear the July salaries. We even have cases of teachers who have not been paid for April and May - we are checking with our district branches to come up with a figure,” Mr Tweheyo said.