Dodoma — THE government has settled workers' payment arrears amounting to 66.2bn/- between July 2011 and May 2012, the National Assembly was told on Monday.

The Minister of State in the President's Office, Public Service Management, Ms Celina Kombani, said that the move was taken to clear overdue payments for various workers in the country.Detailing how 66.2bn/- was paid to 48,006 workers, the Minister said that 21.3bn/- was paid to 23,804 teachers and 10.3bn/- to 7,268 health workers.

Other payments included 1.4bn/- to 1,087 police, immigration and prison officers while the remaining 33bn/- was paid to 15,847 workers from other fields.Ms Kombani was responding to Murtaza Mangungu (Kilwa North-CCM) who had wanted to know when exactly the government was going to clear workers outstanding arrears.

Mr Mangungu claimed that many civil servants including teachers, doctors, police officers and other servants were going for many years with their dues unpaid thus creating unnecessary quarrels with the government.

The minister said that the government was aware of the long time taken to clear arrears before adding that the delays were sometimes fuelled by untimely submissionof relevant information to the public service commission.

She said all those who were promoted at their workplaces, transferred or won disciplinary cases in their workplaces deserved payment thus it was human resources officers' obligation to timely communicate with relevant authorities to help cut back unnecessary delays in payments.

Ms Kombani said that in an effort to curb such delays, the ministry in 2011/2012 started implementing Capital Management Information System (HCMIS) as a way to ensure timely payment to workers.She said that as of October 2011, a total of 403 out 516 human resources officers, equivalent to 78 per cent, from various sectors including ministries, government parastatals and local government authorities had been trained on how to operate HCMIS.