Although Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, has insisted that there is no backlog of eligible teachers awaiting their duty free concessions for vehicles, word out of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) is that this is simply not the case.
An official disclosure from the Union suggests that not only are there more than 100 teachers who have not received their duty free concessions since 2009, but that the blame for this state of affairs must be placed squarely at the doorstep of the Education Ministry.
The Union’s informed response comes on the heels of comments by Minister Manickchand at a recent press conference, where she labelled the GTU as “less than honest” in its disclosures about the duty free concession situation.
Headteachers and Deputy Headteachers of Grade A and B schools are eligible for duty concessions once they would have served for at least three years and have at least five years remaining.
While the Minister acknowledged that there were some challenges that should not have even materialised, she categorically disputed the claims of GTU President, Mark Lyte, that there are eligible teachers who are yet to receive their duty free concessions. She insisted, too, that the challenges that were had cannot be deemed merely the fault of the Ministry, but the Union itself must also accept some responsibility.
“It is also the executive of the Union’s fault; they are trying to say that it is the Ministry’s fault but this is highly misleading,” said the Minister as she intimated that there were about a dozen teachers who were eligible in 2009. She noted that while their applications were not dealt with immediately they were eventually furnished with their duty free concessions.
However, the Union is prepared to publicise documents to substantiate that more than 100 teachers are yet to receive their duty free concessions.
GTU President Mark Lyte
This publication was in fact privy to a list of more than 100 teachers who have been denied their concessions.
According to the GTU, not only has it not been dishonest on this matter “but we have evidence relating to the date and time when the documents were sent off to the Ministry.”
This publication was informed that the list of names of eligible teachers were sent to the Education Ministry’s Human Resources Officer on December 2, 2009, a transaction that can be verified at both the side of the Ministry and that of the Union.
“We have our evidence here and the Guyana Teachers’ Union is prepared to make this list available to the media so that they can randomly call these teachers to see if they were in receipt of their duty concession,” the GTU has stated.
While the Union does not blame the Minister for this oversight, it is however adamant that the Ministry’s Personnel Department should have ensured that she was well informed.
“Our duty is to send documents of a personnel nature to the Personnel Department and not the Minister herself. Our responsibility is not to make sure that the Minister gets it in her hands, our responsibility is to the Human Resource Officer, and so our contention is that in 2009 the document containing 175 names was received by the HR Officer,” the GTU insisted.
Moreover, aside from the number of teachers who received their concession for 2009, as admitted by the Minister, the additional numbers are still in waiting.
“There is still a whole long list of teachers who have not yet received their duty free…We can agree that there was a lull in terms of the distribution in 2009, but what we are saying is although they would have proceeded on retirement at the time they were eligible, and therefore they should be awarded that one-off duty.”
“This is no fault of the teachers, this is no fault of the GTU; it is the Ministry’s fault for whatever reason, and we don’t know what the reasons are that these teachers did not receive their duty free,” the GTU said.
“For the Minister to say only about 12 teachers were eligible in 2009 and then go on to say that we are less than honest and then when we produce our proof, then we can see who is really honest.”
Meanwhile, the Union has had cause to refute claims by the Minister that it too is at fault for a delay in the implementation of the de-bunching process.
According to Lyte, the GTU is dissatisfied with the de-bunching agreement which was designed to place teachers in various salary scale categories based on their years of service. This agreement, Lyte said, was signed in 2011, but to date, no teacher has been able to benefit from it.
“One may want to say that the process wasn’t clear,” said Lyte, at an earlier press conference, as he pointed out that in September of last year a Task Force completed its work in ensuring that the way was paved for the monies to be paid to teachers.
“Again the year came to an end and nothing was done,” said the GTU President, as he disclosed that the Union had even written to the Education Minister asking that a response on the matter be forthcoming within three days. But according to him, “to date we have not received a response from the Ministry of Education. We are saying that this approach is unacceptable and we will not sit by and allow these things to continue to happen to our teachers.”
In presenting her Ministry’s version of the de-bunching situation, the Education Minister explained that it was in 2010, a joint Committee was set up to deal with the proposal for de-bunching. The Committee saw representation from both the Ministry and the GTU sides, the Minister added.
She said that after the Committee met, a memorandum dated May 20, 2010, was sent to all Headteachers, who are members of the union, to submit information in a specified format as agreed upon by the Committee. But after one year only about 10 per cent had submitted the requisite information, Manickchand disclosed.
“In a memo dated the 24th May, 2011, a reminder was sent to the membership of the union again in agreement with the Union’s Executive and so on; by mid-2012 we had received about 90 per cent of the forms we had sent out,” said the Minister.
According to her, the salary structure was designed for implementation of the de-bunching exercise and a costing was done based on a revised salary for 2011. At the start of 2013 a completed proposal was given by the Committee to Lancelot Baptiste, GTU’s Administrative Field Officer, in order to have discussions at the level of the Union.
Manickchand recounted that in February of that same year, Baptiste was advised that the Union was satisfied with the plan which was forwarded to the Ministry sometime late last year, suggesting that the non-implementation of the de-bunching payment was the fault of the Union.
But according to GTU, “We have evidence again via our dispatch book that the de-bunching document which was signed by the GTU President, its General Secretary and its Representative (Baptiste) was sent back to the HR Officer on July 11, 2014.”
Although the GTU President had said it was sent in September “our records show that it was really earlier. Again it was our responsibility to pass it to that Human Resource Officer and not the Minister, and therefore we could not have been at fault.”
“GTU has its evidence, we can make that available as well because the public is being led to believe that GTU is not being truthful and that is not so,” the GTU insisted in its response.
Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2015/01/25/gtu-prepared-to-share-evidence-to-refute-manickchands-less-than-honest-claims/