Report on Teachers' leave fares ready

The final report on the controversy surrounding the teachers leave fares will be tabled in Parliament this week, Education Minister Hon. Nick Kuman announced last Friday.

Minister Kuman said the report will detail issues relating to teachers leave fares, struggle of teachers and the accumulated leave fares, to name a few.

Responding to Wosera Gawi MP Joseph Yopyyopy’s questions to sack officers who failed to deliver the teachers leave fare on time and correct the mistake, Minister Kuman said the issue "is not as easy as we think".

He strongly appealed to all teachers throughout the country due for leave next year to provide their leave applications by May this year and warned that anyone who does not adhere to this instructions would miss out again.

He defended the Education Department officers and attributed the problem to the process leave fares have to go through. "It is a process that is the cause for the delay in processing teachers leave fare on time," he said.

"It’s the decentralisation of responsibilities to the administrations and every provincial administration was remitted the funds for teachers leave fares. "FinCorp doesn’t keep money for teachers.

"Annually we account and budget for teachers leave fares and remit to provinces. The only problem we have is that if the warrant comes out in May-June or later in October or November then we will have the officers working on them late."

Minister Kuman told Parliament the whole of last year’s K26.1 million was remitted to all provincial administrations and not even a single toea remained in Waigani.

He said the full report will be tabled this week.

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