Dodoma — THE government has given assurance that every teacher, dead or retired, will get their payment arrears, accumulated through delayed promotions.

"I would like to assure everyone that we are verifying all the documents that are not clear.

We are looking at various lists to establish those who were not promoted and those who died before being promoted, then we will start making payments," the Deputy Minister, Prime Minister's Office Regional Administration, Mr Kassim Majaliwa, said.

He was responding to a supplementary question by Ms Salome Mwambu (Iramba East - CCM) on what the government planned to do about teachers who were not promoted and what action would be taken against officials who deliberately delayed the process.

Mr Majaliwa explained that the verification process was an ongoing exercise and that the ministry was going to work very closely with local and regional authorities in identifying any officials that purposely delayed the promotion of teachers for disciplinary actions to be taken.

In her basic question, Ms Mwambu had wanted to know what the government was doing to address the problem of delayed promotions, unpaid allowances and the looming strike.

Mr Majaliwa said that the government recognised the importance of teachers and their contribution and therefore was working on improving their welfare. He explained that in the last financial year, the government set aside 15.8bn/- to be paid as transfer allowances for teachers in Iramba but only 131.5m/- was received.

"Regarding the issue of keeping a list of teachers and their years of service, executive directors are supposed to submit names to the Ministry and the Civil Service Commission every after three months. We have started using a Human Capital Management System to improve the submission of these reports," he explained.

Ubungo Member of Parliament (Chadema), Mr John Mnyika wanted to know when problems pertaining to teachers will end in the country particularly on their allowances saying that strike was looming. Mr Majaliwa said that teachers hadn't openly declared that they were planning to strike, saying efforts were being made to avert the crisis.