The Botswana Secondary Schools Teachers Union (BOSETU) is up in arms against the employer, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) over nonpayment of teachers’ salaries for two consecutive months of September and October with no promising news of payment.
About 300 teachers claim they have not been paid, the same teachers who participated in the industrial strike last year. Last week, some teachers who had queued to collect their salaries were shocked because no money had been credited into their accounts for two months running.
“We don’t know if this is still part of the no-work no-pay rule that was implemented by government on the salaries of teachers who took part in the industrial strike last year,” said Tobokani Rari, the Secretary General for BOSETU.
Teachers at Gowa School in Okavango area, Motswasele in Molepolole, and Kgosinti in Jwaneng have so far not received their salaries. Rari said they cannot comprehend how the same mistake keeps on recurring.
“Someone is definitely sleeping on the job at MoESD; we did not expect this to happen again, especially when this anomaly was brought to their attention last month well on time,” an infuriated Rari said.
Last month MoESD said September salaries were not deposited due to a technical error and for the month of October they have cited an error to have occurred.
“We have approached the employer over the issue and they had promised to deposit by Tuesday, which they did not and they said they would pay by Friday until now nothing has been deposited,” Rari said.
Salaries were supposed to have been deposited last week. Rari said we are forced to believe that perhaps there is more to it than a technical error.
“We do not know what is going on but at least they should consider teachers because it is difficult to take care of their families and pay bills,” he said. “We are lodging a case against government to bear the costs of extra charges incurred by our members as a result of subserviced loans,” he said.
Rari added that teachers paid government for the time they were on strike and owe government nothing.
“If salaries are not deposited immediately teachers who haven’t received their salaries will not go to work; the ‘no-work no pay’ rule stands,” he said.
