Requena Maintains Teacher’s Late Salaries are Being Addressed

The salary saga between the Belize National Teachers’ Union and the Ministry of Education is far from over. Earlier this month, the BNTU doubled down, saying several teachers are still missing their pay, despite Minister of Education Oscar Requena’s assurance that the issue had already been resolved. In a previous interview, Minister Requena explained that the deductions showing up in teachers’ accounts were due to salary advances given back in December. But the union isn’t buying it, they say they never agreed to those terms. Today, we caught up with Minister Requena once again. He stood by his earlier statements, insisting the concerns are being addressed.

 

Oscar Requena, Minster of Education

“I want to say  that there was no information that was misconstrued to me. I stand by the interview that I did. And I want to say that for me as the Minister of Education, together with our management team, we have been proactive we have addressed the issues because we do recognize that there were issues. So what we did is we convened a meeting and I want to thank the accountant General, her staff and the treasury department for meeting with us first at the ministry. And thereafter we had a meeting with the BNTU executive in which the issues were discussed. And really and truly, yes, there are issues that the payment salaries or allowances for teachers were delayed. But really and truly, they were beyond the control of the Ministry of Education because many of these issues, and I have to say, these are reoccurring perennial issues that our teachers have been facing. And there are issues that have to do a lot with managements, where managements have not been doing their duties in terms of submitting information on a timely basis to the Ministry of Education for forwarding on to the Treasury Department to be able to process their salaries. So we had a very good meeting with the union, we discussed the issues and we certainly charted a plan moving forward in which we are going to engage with the managements and really impress upon them the importance of them carrying out and delivering on their responsibilities and duties.”