Leaders raise the red flag over pay for ghost teachers

Authorities in Bukomansimbi District are puzzled by the number of teachers who abandon their work stations, but continue drawing monthly salaries, Daily Monitor has established.
Mr Patrick Zziwa, the Bukomasimbi District education officer, said their investigations have revealed that about 50 teachers in various primary schools in the district have spent more than six months without reporting for duty and yet their monthly salaries are accredited to their accounts.

A teacher is deemed absent if he/she fails to report for duty for more than one day without permission from the head teacher.
“Teachers are required to arrive at school early and leave when their scheduled work time has ended. But those teachers you are talking about, have spent several months without reporting to work,” Mr Zziwa said during an interview on Wednesday.

Mr Zziwa said none of the absent teachers applied for study leave, maternity leave, annual leave or sick leave.
Leave refers to time off from work to which employees are entitled.
Many of the absent teachers, according to Mr Zziwa, have since left the country for greener pastures in the Middle East to work.

“What we have discovered is that, those teachers secured loans from banking institutions to facilitate their travel expenses, unfortunately after going, they leave the burden to government to service their loans since they applied as civil servants who earn salaries. When the salary is paid, it is taken by the banks,” he said.
Mr Zziwa said the district is losing on average 10 teachers every term.
The lowest paid primary teacher in a public school earns Shs270,000 per month.
“Government is losing too much money to those ghost teachers and by the time we get to know about it, a lot of money is already lost,” he said.
He said they are working with the Internal Affairs ministry to scrutinise individuals who secure passports to go abroad for work.

“There is really no reason why civil servants, especially teachers, should be allowed to leave the country and work elsewhere when they have loans,” Mr Zziwa said.
“We are also going to conduct spot-checks in all schools in the whole district to ascertain whether teachers regularly report for duty. Teachers who will be absent for three months, will be deleted from government pay roll,” he said.

Mr Muhammad Katerega, the Bukomansimbi District chairperson, said the practice of teachers abandoning schools without informing their superiors is hurting the education sector in the district.
“Police should help us investigate such individuals and they should be hunted everywhere they are using Interpol,” he said.
He said the district education department has started sensitising members of Parents Teachers Associations (PTAs) to become more vigilant and report teachers who abscond from duty.

Authorities
Bukomansimbi District has a total of 62 public primary schools with only 836 primary teachers.
Ms Rosemary Seninde, the junior education minister-in-charge of Primary Education, said her office has not yet received any reports about such unscrupulous teachers who continue to earn salaries yet they have already abandoned their work stations.
“It is unfortunate that such a thing is happening but when we formally get complaints from the district authorities, we shall respond immediately with a solution,” she said by telephone yesterday.

Surveys
Unicef. According to a 2010 United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report, teacher absenteeism is high in Uganda, with more than 60 per cent of teachers not in the classroom teaching in more than half of all Ugandan public schools.
Ministry of Education, report indicates that although teaching takes place, the number of lessons taught is inadequate compared to set timetables.
It indicated that 4 per cent or about 7,480 teachers in public primary schools quit work annually due to poor remuneration.
Although some die, abscond or retire, a large number of teachers quit for better paying jobs.

[email protected]