By MATTHEW
VARI
THE Special Parliamentary Committee on Public Sector Reform and Service Delivery has heard from the sector heads along with instances where certain teachers were abusing the system for personal gain when claiming leave fares.
Teachers Services Commission Chairman Baran Sori pointed out records on file where teachers have abused privileges for the claiming of fares for dependents like children who have gone past the age limit of 16 year.
“We have classical examples of teachers in National Capital District and also other provinces that a parent can easily go to the registry office and change the birth date of a child,” Mr Sori said.
“We have records on file of that in nature, that can inflate the budget of provinces have budgeted for teachers leave fares.”
“There are policy issues on male teachers with more than one wife, along with children of second or third wives.”
He queried the law and its interpretation to accommodate for the compound of issues that come into play when determining leave fares for teachers.
“A teacher can front up at education office and say that he has a number of children, saying that the leave fares are less.”
Teacher Services Commission unfortunately only has 32 officers dealing with 48000 teachers, and we have called for the expansion of the commission to the provinces to be where the teachers are so that as the employer we can respond to issues on the ground.”
“Leave fares are entitled by law and the recommend calls for dialogue with treasury due to funds being paid into accounts for leave being taxed at 30 percent, which is a loss.”
He comments were reiterated by Education Secretary to the committee Dr Michael Tapo regarding the inflation on the part of teachers in claiming for dependents.
“We say we are a Christian country, but there are a lot of people who inflate the number of children and wives and the number of adopted children,” Dr Tapo said.
“In our books those people have to be declared in the teachers professional file, but that area is where the bio data is very important and we need to tidy up the law in that area.”
“The resource package is very limited- whatever government gives you is so limited.”
Their comments were supported by committee member and Governor for West New Britain Sasindran Muthuvel.
“At the same time I am not denying the fact that a lot of false claims and even wantoks (relatives) have been putting in their claims for allowances and others that put those teachers from other provinces at difficulty,” Governor Muthuvel said.
“Also the number of children are huge we need some guidelines to see the limits to kids- there are enormous amounts with some teachers getting K14,000 to K15,000 for the husband and wives and kids.”
“It creates this strain that affects the genuine teachers who do not get the chance to go to their province and come back for leave.”
Teachers are entitled to leave fares every two years, but some have applied and received for every year because of a lack of proper data bases using their connections with those in charge, because no one is really monitoring.
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