Kwara Govt offsets withheld salaries of 594 unofficial SUBEB teachers

The AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq-led Kwara State Government has offset the backlog of salaries of 594 unofficial SUBEB teachers, fixing fresh recruitment for January 2021.

According to a statement issued on Thursday by the Press Secretary, Ministry of Education & Human Capital Development, Yakub Ali-Agan, the 7 months salary was paid on compassionate grounds.

The statement reads: “Everyone whose salaries were withheld since June has now had same paid strictly on compassionate grounds.

“The government’s decision to withhold their salaries was not unilateral or punitive. It was as a result of the unlawful insertion of their names to the payroll without executive approval.”

The statement disclosed that the government conducted extensive investigations  which revealed the following:

•  A total number of 2,414 SUBEB teachers were engaged in the twilight of the past administration. They are otherwise called sunset workers.
• This figure is a violent contravention of the executive approval by former Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed who had authorised the employment of 1,100 qualified teachers to take English Language, Mathematics, and Science subjects only.
• On assumption of office in 2019, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, faced with conflicting claims on these workers, magnanimously authorised the screening of all of them, after which 1,658 were cleared as qualified. Surprisingly, additional 594 got inserted into the payroll. There are claims that 162 more were part of the mix.
• This was discovered during Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) investigation of the untidy process that kept throwing up conflicting figures of employees and mind-boggling details of how non-qualified persons were engaged.
• For instance, it was discovered that several of the 1,658 purportedly adjudged to be qualified do not have required teaching certificates.
• It was also discovered that teachers were engaged for subjects not covered in the executive approval, underscoring the unwholesome and impeachable nature of the entire process.

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It explained that “flowing from the above, the government has decided to start the employment process all over again in January 2021.

“The government will open a new application portal for all the 2,414 and any other eligible persons to apply for SUBEB teaching jobs in relevant subjects to be advertised.

“This effectively nullifies the controversial employment process of 2018/2019.”

The statement noted that the new recruitment process will be largely technology-driven, and needs-based, while every applicant will go through rigorous screenings.

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