From JOE Hemba , Damaturu
Yobe State Government says, the allegations of November salary deduction of primary school teachers is false and misleading to the general public.
The State Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Hon Yerima Lawan Mahmud disclosed this at a joint press briefing with the Auditor General of Local Government Yahaya Wakil Idris.
The Commissioner who was represented by the permanent secretary of the ministry Alhaji Baba Ali said what took place was an adjustment in an earlier error of the salary anomalies in the Teacher Salary Structure (TSS) which the administration of Mai Mala Buni has promised to make teaching attractive to its practitioners.
According to him, the development was to clean up the mess in the system and effect adequate renumeration of professional teachers to enjoy the exclusive 27.5% hazard and professional allowances approved by 19 northern governors for teachers in 2009.
He noted that non-teaching staff in the primary schools in the state were enjoying the allowances of teaching staff but the with the current adjustment, some of the staff felt they were being shortchanged.
He sighted a similar exercise in the state primary health where non-medical staff were as well enjoying the Consolidated Health Salary Structure(CONHESS) until the correction was done.
The commissioner regretted that despite their fruitful discussion with the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), they left the meeting and rather issued a warning strike to the state government to their disappointment.
He noted that, “the warning of that strike is baseless because of the kind of discussion that we had together with the leadership of the NUT on this matter. It is uncalled for to hear from the NUT that they would be embarking on a strike. It sounded so disappointing to us,” the commissioner said.
The Auditor General of the Local government, Yahaya Wakili Idriss while giving details of development said the adjustment affected the 27.5% increments on teachers salary earlier approved by the Governors of 19 northern state in 2009.
"The minimum qualification for a professional teacher is either Grade II certificate or NCE, which means that their grade level in the civil service should start from GL05_16.
"So we only made the deductions on LGEA staff from level 01_04 who under normal circumstances are not supposed to be teachers or enjoy the said allowances on the teachers payroll.
"However, because of the complaints coming as a result, we discussed extensively with the leadership of NUT, we gave them the list of all the affected teachers and agreed that any qualified teacher who was erroneously affected, would be considered and reimbursed.
He said " By this exercise we found out that some qualified teachers were underpaid, someone that supposed to be placed on Grade Level_7 salary was receiving GL_04, so the correct status should be established and hence they will receive their actual entitlements,” the Auditor General explained.
But the NUT Secretary in the State, Comrade(Dr) Ali Fannami said the Union has reached a temporary agreement with the ministry to suspend the warning strike.
“I want to formally tell you that we have withdrawn the earlier ultimatum to go on strike because the state government has promised to pay back all the monies deducted from our members within one week.
“The state has also promised to tackle other things that were raised in our earlier communication. But failure to do so in the stipulated time, we will reconvene to go on strike,” Dr. Fannami informed.
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