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Cameroon: Government Suspends Teachers' Salaries
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The Post (Buea)
4 April 2008
Posted to the web 4 April 2008
Francis Tim Mbom & Jeff Ngawe Yufenyu
The March salaries of scores of teachers of Basic and Secondary Education in the Northwest and the Southwest Provinces have been suspended.
The salaries were suspended apparently because several teachers have been earning undue salaries "There are some teachers who have been earning the salaries of principals whereas they are not principals. And there are others who are paid allowances for handling some duty posts which actually they do not," officials of Basic and Secondary Education explained.
In the Northwest, the teachers were stunned as they trooped to Bamenda only to be informed that they had no salaries for March.Some of the teachers, however, were not shocked by the salary suspension because they were aware of the list of thousands of teachers of both ministries, released by the Inter-ministerial Committee on the sanitation of the payroll and state personnel card index.
Several other teachers were not even aware of the list. It was teachers on this category that was stunned when their bankers informed them of no salaries for March.It should be recalled that a communiqué of the Ministry of Public Service No 000/40/LC/MFPRA/CAB of January 25, 2008 published thousands of names of teachers of Secondary and Basic Education for irregularities discovered in the evolution of their careers.
There were actually two lists of 896 and 607 names of teachers of the Ministry of Basic Education. These teachers were summoned to the Discipline Council of the Public Service in Yaounde to defend the numerous irregularities which included false dates of birth, fake integration decisions, false advancement by echelon, and false advancement by grade and non-existent chief of bureau appointments.
Other irregularities included fake certificates and diplomas, fake allowances of various categories like vehicle allowance, allowances for chiefs of services, that of sub-directors and directors amongst others.
In Fako Division in the Southwest, the teachers have been on their feet for over a week now, recompiling documents in order to have their salaries reinstated.A list published at the office of the Divisional Delegation of Secondary Education in Limbe, on March 25, states that 912 teachers presently teaching in government secondary schools across the Division have not been recognised as state employees. Out of 1773 names, only 861 have been marked as recognised.
The Divisional Delegate of Secondary Education, Albert Njoh Ndoumbe, told The Post by phone that the unrecognised teachers are those who failed to do a census carried out in 2006 to determine the exact number of civil servants on the pay roll.
The Delegate said the 912 teachers have been obliged to redo the census within the shortest time possible. Njoh, however, said officials are expected any time soon from Yaounde to collect the files of those who have done the exercise.
As to why such a huge number, he said the teachers either did not do the census in 2006 or their files got missing somewhere along the line. Some of Delegation officials, however, said government was still bent on fishing out ghost civil servants on its pay roll.
As we went to press, the Northwest Provincial Delegate of Secondary Education, George Awuro Antene, disclosed that more than 1700 teachers drawn from the seven divisions of the Province have been ordered to repeat the civil servants census. They are required to compile and submit 13 documents.
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Sources at the Provincial Delegation told The Post on April 1 that whoever fails to do the census will have his or her salary suspended.The bulk of the names involve teachers of Mezam Division with more than 900 names; Momo Division comes next with more than 200 names, followed by Bui, Donga-Mantung and Ngoketunjia Divisions with more than 100 names each, while Menchum and Boyo Divisions tail the chart with less than 100 names each.
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