By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

AN education official yesterday confirmed that the Department of Education has “secured” cheque payments for 67 of those supply teachers contracted by the Ministry of Education who have not been paid for months, explaining that an additional 71 pay outs were being “worked out” for later this week.

Education Director Lionel Sands, speaking on the pay dispute first reported by The Tribune last week, claimed the Department of Education has worked tirelessly in recent days to rectify the matter.

“We now have 67 pay outs ready to go, and 71 more on their way to the treasury to be approved. This is a one off thing where issues arose, were corrected and we are working to assure that we are not back here in the future,” Mr Sands said when contacted on Tuesday.

The Tribune reported on Friday that nearly 200 supply teachers across the country have gone months without receiving their salaries, according to Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) officials.

This came after one teacher, who did not want to be named, told The Tribune that his wife, a supply teacher at a government school, had not been paid for three months.

Mr Sands blamed irregularities in the department’s claims process for the lack of salary payments, as he explained that his office operates on the premise that all claims of non-payment must be investigated thoroughly and compiled into a list before being transferred to the Ministry of Education.

He said while there is no “correct, best way” to acknowledge of a failure of this magnitude, “corrective measures” are being employed to guard against such a mishap in the future.

“It needs to be made clear that complaints come in everyday and we work to get them addressed,” Mr Sands told The Tribune. “So a problem like this isn’t because of no one, singular reason, multiple issues arose that contributed to this one major fault.

“Instead of sending complaints in to the ministry, one or two everyday, we have a system where we investigate and then compile. Once that list has grown to a sizeable number, we make the transfer and send those investigated and substantiated complaints over to the ministry for them to be corrected.

“But while the claim that teachers aren’t being paid is alarming, we need the message that this is correctable and we are working to correct this, out there.”

Supply teachers are retirees who have mostly been re-engaged by the government because of shortages across the country.

Sources in the BUT have also suggested that the payment issue had forced at least one supply teacher in Inagua to quit over financial issues.

The source said: “They sent her there, promised her rent but didn’t pay for it.”

BUT Acting President Joan Knowles Turnquest on Thursday also said her union had a problem receiving union dues, as they have not been taken from the salaries of teachers by the government and paid to the union in recent months.

In August 2016, Mr Fitzgerald expressed concern over the “unexpected” applications for early retirement from 119 public school teachers ahead of the 2016-2017 academic school year.

Mr Fitzgerald said at the time that the ministry would likely employ some 30 supply teachers to fill vacancies.