Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo is as­sur­ing teach­ers that their re­vised salaries and out­stand­ing back pay will be set­tled be­fore the end of the first quar­ter of 2026.

While he did not pro­vide a spe­cif­ic pay­ment date—some­thing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) re­quest­ed in a let­ter de­liv­ered to his of­fice on Mon­day—union pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe re­mains cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic.

As he made his way to the Red House yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia asked the min­is­ter when teach­ers would re­ceive the fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits owed to them fol­low­ing the five per cent wage in­crease signed in April 2025, just days be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ini­tial­ly, Min­is­ter Tan­coo said the funds would be paid “when it is due.” Pressed for a spe­cif­ic time­line, he stat­ed, “With­in the first quar­ter of cal­en­dar 2026, which is now.”

The first quar­ter ends March 31, and when asked if this ap­plied to back pay, new salaries, or both, the min­is­ter replied while walk­ing away: “Back­pay and new salaries.”

TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe de­scribed the state­ment as “promis­ing” but not­ed lin­ger­ing con­cern.

“Re­mem­ber we were told Ju­ly 2025, then Jan­u­ary 2026, and now March 2026. Let’s hope that the pat­tern of non-de­liv­ery does not con­tin­ue. TTUTA is sin­cere­ly will­ing to give the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance this op­por­tu­ni­ty to make good on his ut­ter­ances,” Ashe said.

The five per cent wage agree­ment was im­ple­ment­ed in stag­gered in­cre­ments of one per cent, one per cent, and three per cent, along with a con­sol­i­dat­ed Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance (CO­LA). The fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions are sig­nif­i­cant, with ar­rears es­ti­mat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $730 mil­lion and a re­cur­ring an­nu­al cost of $214 mil­lion.

Frus­tra­tion among teach­ers has been mount­ing as the pay­ment time­line con­tin­ues to shift. Ed­u­ca­tors were ini­tial­ly told they would see re­vised salaries by June or Ju­ly 2025. Af­ter the new ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sumed of­fice, that pro­jec­tion moved to Jan­u­ary 2026.

Now, with Jan­u­ary passed and Feb­ru­ary payslips still re­flect­ing no in­crease, con­cerns have deep­ened.

Al­though Cab­i­net rat­i­fied the agree­ment on Jan­u­ary 26, the Min­istry of Fi­nance has yet to re­lease the funds or pro­vide a de­fin­i­tive pay­ment date.