Be wary of scams, teachers told

TEACHERS have been told not to be fooled by individuals who claim to be affiliated with the Education Department or the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) and collect money to settle unpaid salary entitlements.
TSC chairman Samson Wangihomie said this after a notice of payment was given to a school to pay K32,000 to an individual.
He said teachers in a particular school sent the copy of the cheque to the department and TSC and found that it was a scam.
Wangihomie said the cheque had a signature of TSC commissioner which was forged.
“The cheque was approved by TSC commissioner, none of us have that signature, both past and current commissioners,” he said.
Wangihomie said one of the staff’s name written on the cheque was spelt incorrectly and other name written on the cheque was an unknown name.
He said no one in the department had heard of that name (Ryan Oge).
“Our appeal to teachers is that if they get anything like that, they get it on Facebook or they get it on whatever medium, through mail or whatever, they should not do anything, it’s a scam,” he said.
Wangihomie said there were many other teachers throughout the country who experienced such and urged them not to be duped.
Teaching Service Commission commissioner operations Maini Ugaia said the department did not raise any more cheques.
“There are no manual cheques printed in the payroll, every transaction goes through the payroll to the account, whatever bank they are banking with,” he said.
“There is no more printing of any cheque by the Department of Education for such payment.
“This payment is quoted as disadvantage allowance.
“Normally it goes to the account.
“Our department here don’t issue BSP (Bank South Pacific) cheques.
“BSP doesn’t issue cheques to individual teachers.”