The Federal Government has pledged to pay the 36-month salary arrears owed to some teachers of Unity Colleges. This commitment was made by the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, on the sidelines of a three-day EdTech Conference organized by the Mastercard Foundation in Abuja on Tuesday.
According to Pathway News, no fewer than 1,800 teachers of Unity Colleges have been owed salary arrears and other allowances for three years. Prof. Mamman assured that the files of the affected teachers are already with the Ministry of Finance and that they would be paid soon.
“The issue of the teachers’ salary is already with the Budget Office and the Ministry of Finance. So hopefully, they will be paid,” Mamman said. “I can’t tell exactly when their money will be paid. We don’t pay in the Ministry of Education. But we have done the paperwork. It is already in Finance. Hopefully, very soon, they will get their money.”
The teachers in question were recruited by the Federal Ministry of Education in 2018, 2019, and 2020 as education officers and were posted to schools across the country. However, they were not paid due to logistic challenges encountered at the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) desk of the ministry. Another reason for the non-payment was the failure of the ministry to transmit the files of the affected teachers to the Budget Office for vetting and onward transfer to the Accountant General’s office for approval
