Teachers Decry Exclusion From Bailout Funds For Salaries

Winifred ogbebo 

The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has expressed outrage over what it described as the systematic exclusion of members in the payment of salaries from the 2015 federal government bailout funds given to state governments.

A statement made available to LEADERSHIP yesterday in Abuja, by the national leadership of the union, signed by the secretary general, Obong I.J.Obong, said it rejects the segregational treatment meted out to teachers by some governors in favour of other workers in their various states.

The union said it would not stand aloof and watch the continuous maltreatment and gross insensitivity towards teachers’ plights by some state governments.

The union recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari, upon assumption of office, offered bailout funds to state governments to enable them offset backlog of salaries arrears owed workers.

Part of the statement read, “It is equally on record that teachers were the most affected having been owed months of salaries. Therefore it is unacceptable and highly callous for state governments not to place teachers on priority list at the commencement of salary payment from the federal government bailout funds.”

Calling on state governments still owing teachers’ arrears of salaries to urgently offset same and ensure that teachers were given priority attention whenever such funds were given to state governments in future, the union demanded for equity and fairness in the management of the bailout funds meant for workers’ salaries.

The statement added, “We are, indeed, alarmed by the ICPC report that state governments mismanaged and in some cases, diverted their bailout funds to other areas different from what they were meant for. It is therefore our view that such state governments be adequately sanctioned to check such untoward behaviour in future. They should also be forced to source funds and pay their teachers and, indeed all workers in line with the spirit and intendment of the bailout funds.

“At this critical stage of our national challenges, state governments should desist from actions that will further cause avoidable suffering of teachers and great strain on our educational system, but work to advance their social, economic and political well-being.”

source: http://www.leadership.ng/news/523661/teachers-decry-exclusion-bailout-funds-salaries-2