SOURCE: Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC)

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) says its mem­bers will re­ceive out­stand­ing pay­ments from the gov­ern­ment in Sep­tem­ber for the pe­ri­od 2020 to 2023.

But TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said there has been no of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Min­istry of Fi­nance nor the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion re­gard­ing the pay­ments.

He said all gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees re­ceive their salaries on Sep­tem­ber 22 and re­ports of teach­ers re­ceiv­ing their back pay “would be as a re­sult of the ad­vo­ca­cy of the as­so­ci­a­tion the ad­vo­ca­cy of its mem­bers. The work­ers say they have gone on the In­te­grat­ed Hu­man Re­source In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem (IHRIS), a cen­tralised gov­ern­ment plat­form that al­lows pub­lic of­fi­cers to view their pay slips on­line.”

“We would like to thank our mem­bers at this point in time for all your hard work all your be­lief in your as­so­ci­a­tion (and) we would al­so like to en­cour­age those per­sons who are not yet mem­bers to get in­to the clos­est TTUTA of­fice and en­sure that you are rep­re­sent­ed by your as­so­ci­a­tion,” he added.

In a state­ment, the TTUTA said that the pay­ment of the ar­rears es­ti­mat­ed at TT$900 mil­lion (One TT dol­lar=US$0.16 cents) is an im­por­tant out­come and a vic­to­ry for the as­so­ci­a­tion, re­mind­ing its mem­ber­ship that dur­ing the me­dia bud­get re­view in June 2026, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo had said that out­stand­ing pay­ments would be made in fis­cal 2027.

TTUTA is say­ing that now it seems as though the pay­ments are be­ing made at the end of this fis­cal year is as a re­sult of the con­tin­ued ad­vo­ca­cy and pres­sure brought to bear on both the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Tan­coo has promised to make a state­ment in Par­lia­ment on the is­sue on Wednes­day. —PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)