– GTU wants monies owed by Gov’t
…calls meeting to inform teachers about stagnated discussions with the MOE
By Lisa Hamilton
The Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) called a virtual press conference on Tuesday to discuss the issue of outstanding finances owed to teachers by the Government. Much of the discussion had to do with the 2016-2018 multi-year agreement between the Union and Ministry of Education (MOE)/Government of Guyana which the Union said is now outdated.
GTU President, Mark Lyte and GTU General Secretary, Coretta McDonald explained that these issues are affecting the fruitful relationship between the GTU and the Ministry of Education.
McDonald said that though the agreement ended in 2018 it includes a clause which states that until a new agreement is inked, the parties continue on with the existing. With no update over time, she explained that there are several issues outstanding, some of which date back to pre-2015.
“Over the last couple of months, meeting with our partners, we’ve tried to resolve those issues…but it has reached a stage now where every time there is an attendance at our meetings — and especially our financial issues — we are being given a report which is the same we hear all the time and that of ‘Finance [Ministry] has not been able to confirm on this’,” McDonald said.
“Those financial issues are mounting and if we’re saying at this time that we don’t have [or] the monies are too much, if we don’t have them resolved now then we’re going to have serious issues going down the line.”
Agreeing with this account was GTU President, Mark Lyte who said that the matters have been raised repeatedly at each forum with the Ministry but the GTU continues to be told that action lies in the hands of the Ministry of Finance.
Some of the issues include the non-payment of clothing allowance; non-payment of salary increases; differences in payment for thousands of teachers; non-payment of special needs teachers in Region Ten, and debunching.
Expounding on the above, Lyte said that teachers have not received their $8,000 clothing allowance for 2019-2021. Meanwhile, though teachers were given an 8 per cent increase on their salaries in 2018, there has been no such increase in 2019 or 2020 which Lyte said means that there is some reluctance to address this as outlined in the multi-year agreement.
“We have indicated to the Ministry of Education at our last statutory monthly meeting that we have had enough of the same excuse and therefore we’re going to have this press conference to inform our members that we have had enough of the same excuses and we want to see action,” Lyte stated.
The GTU President said that the Union’s Executives will not be the ones to make a decision on what actions are to be taken to “shake up” the Finance Ministry regarding the issues, but this will be up to the majority decision of its members.
