Councils get 7-day ultimatum to pay teachers’ allowances

FLORENCE MUGARULA in Dodoma

MINISTER of State, President’s Office, Public Service Management and Good Governance, Ms Angella Kairuki yesterday directed all councils that received new teachers to immediately pay them their various allowances within seven days from yesterday.

The Minister said the government recently allocated science teachers and laboratory technicians to various schools across the country and that councils were supposed to pay them their various allowances immediately.

“We have allocated these teachers to various schools. We do not expect them to suffer and end up being frustrated, I am therefore giving a directive to all councils across the country to pay these teachers and lab technicians within seven days from today,” she said.

Ms Kairuki was responding to Ukerewe MP (Chadema), Mr Joseph Mkundi who wanted to know when the govern ment will start to provide motivation allowances to teachers and other public servants who work in challenging environments.

The MP also wanted to know when the government through its councils will pay all stipulated allowances to all teachers who have recently allocated to new working stations.

The Minister said councils have budgets for paying teachers and laboratory technicians’ allowances and that they must immediately pay them as directed.

On motivation allowances, the Minister said in 2010 the government passed a policy on payment of salaries and motivation allowance to public servants who serve in challenging environments.

She said in 2012/13 at least 33 councils including Ukerewe were enabled to prepare the guideline for offering motivation allowances. She said that at least 29 councils managed to prepare guidelines and submitted them to her office.

According to Minister Kairuki, the guidelines showed that at least 331bn/- were required for development projects and 17bn/-for other recurrent expenditure annually.

aShe said the guidelines were set to be implemented starting 2013/14. However, Ms Kairuki said so far, the government has not been able to implement the guideline due to the shortage of funds.