The Federal Government has revealed that teachers recruited into the Federal Government Colleges about two years ago and being owed salaries, would be paid in the next few weeks.

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Arc. Sonny Echonu made the revelation on Monday, after monitoring the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) at Federal Government Girls College Bwari, and Government Girls Secondary School Dutse, Abuja

Echonu, who said he has been concerned with the plight of the affected teachers, noted that the delayed payment was due to what he described as “a comedy of errors,” arising from an embargo placed on migration to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) to forestall illegal employment at the time.

He said: “It is a very unfortunate incident that keeps me awake at night because there is a comedy of errors but the reality is that there was a cause for it. Cases of illegal employment were discovered but the people you are talking about are legitimate officers who are properly employed and documented but unfortunately there was a huge spike and when this was noticed, an embargo was placed on migrating them to IPPIS

“This coincided with when they were ready to be migrated to IPPiS and it took a very long time to resolve all the issues because it is a huge network operating within the ministries, Civil Service Commission until the Chairman himself, the Head of Service and many of us involved in the system decided to beam on it and resolve the problems.

“But the embargo has since been lifted for them, many of them who have been invited have done the needful, the assurances I have is that by the end of September or October they will begin to receive their salaries,” he said.

Echonu, who commended the peaceful conduct of this year’s examination, further noted that over 1.57 million candidates registered for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in over 19,000 examination centres nationwide.

Stressing the ministry’s zero tolerance for examination malpractice, he maintained that any individual or school found culpable of malpractice would be arrested and punished, in order to ensure sanctity and immunity was restored to the nation’s education sector.

(New Telegraph)

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