President of the Antigua and Barbuda Union of Teachers (A&BUT) Casroy Charles told Observer media that he was shocked to see the notice with the names of 102 teachers whose cheques remain unclaimed, which the Ministry of Education, Sports and Creative Industries released yesterday.
Charles said he became aware of the document on Wednesday night during a meeting with the membership. He said the union will send out a communication to its membership apprising them about the document.
Speaking specifically to the monies which are owed, Charles said those funds are for several different things.
“…If we’re being true to the process, in relation to allowances, it will be over 300 recipients for allowances; because remember the allowances stem from travel allowances for principals and deputy principals, and we have 43 public schools. So, if you’re counting a principal and a deputy principal for each school, you’re talking about 80-something persons who are entitled.
“It relates to the coverall allowances, or the technical vocational areas allowances. We have 13 public secondary schools, and if you were supposed to do an average, it would be like five teachers per discipline, and it’s five disciplines. So, we’re talking about, like, 13 times 565 times 5 again, which shows you the kind of volume of payment we’re dealing with, and it’s for seven years, which will further compound the amount of checks that needs to be issued,” Charles said.
The union head also made mention of the difficulty teachers face in collecting the actual cheques, even after information would have been received that they are ready for collection at the Ministry of Education.
“So, there’s some technical difficulties in terms of persons accessing the checks or receiving the checks when they actually go attempt to collect them. So to publish something like this, stating that it’s uncollected, that can be very defamatory, and I won’t speak much to that because we’ll have to apprise our membership as to the whole publication, because that puts a different slant to what’s going on.”
The Cabinet Notes this week blamed the free balance system being used by the Treasury as one of the reasons that would have posed some challenges with some of the vouchers apparently being rejected, requiring new vouchers to be issued.
But Charles said the issue that officials tend to overlook is the fact that names, even though with the best of efforts, can get inadvertently get left off the list.
He suggested that there needs to be proper checks and balances to verify information about payment.
According to him, “It’s not as seamless as the ministry is trying to put it where all they have to do is submit the vouchers and everything should be processed because we have the human element as it relates to this.”
Charles said considering that there are over 300 recipients with cheques being processed from 2018 to 2024, there’s a high risk that some miscalculations can take place especially if there is a distraction.
“I think it’s supposed to be a collaborative effort between those agents who are tasked with payment to ensure that everything is done in its entirety and not putting the blame on different organization or agents as it relates to the process.
“And that is a challenge we always have in terms of the ministry. If you’re looking at this closely, the Ministry of Education had to do a similar arrangement with Establishment which brought us to this point,” Charles noted.
The Ministry of Education subsequently put out a press statement seeking to clarify the publication of the list of teachers who have uncollected checks at the Ministry.
According to the Ministry, “The sole purpose of releasing the names was to efficiently and directly inform the affected teachers that their checks are ready for collection, ensuring that the ongoing industrial action comes to an end.”
It was noted that although an internal mechanism to contact recipients exists, the Ministry finds that this process is sometimes slow and tedious. Therefore, the publication of names was intended to complement this internal process.
“The Ministry clarifies that it did not intend to imply that these checks were neglected for a prolonged duration or to question the professionalism or diligence of the educators.”
Teachers have been engaged in industrial action since Friday, May 2 and have pledged to continue their sit-in until every teacher is paid.
“If the ministry sends a list of names and we check it against ours, we will say that the action is over, even though the person has not received the cheques, the actual cheques in hand. But based on what has transpired during the course of this week, that really begs the question if we need to reconsider that approach. Because you’re giving us lists which state the person’s cheques are there.
“And when they go up to the ministry, the clerk is saying there’s no cheque for you. So, how confident can we be in that whole process? And with that list that was sent out this morning, yes, the person’s name is on the list. But as I would have mentioned, they’re owed monies for a period of time,” Charles concluded.
