No pay for 11,000

The National Main Stories

By GYNNIE KERO and ERIC PIET
MORE than 11,000 teachers have been taken off the payroll because the pay office is yet to receive a formal confirmation that they have resumed duties in term one.
The Teaching Service Commission had given everyone up to the seventh pay day — the fortnight ending Wednesday this week — to fill in and submit their resumption of duty summary sheet forms to the Education Department in Port Moresby.
Commission chairman Baran Sori said yesterday that 11,011 teachers’ forms were yet to be received, thus the “auto suspension” for the 11,000 teachers from the payroll.
The 11,000 include teachers who:

  • Did not resume duty at the start of term one in late January and thus had not filled in the form;
  • had resumed duty but had not filled in the forms; and
  • Have filled in the forms which have yet to reach the pay office in Waigani, Port Moresby.

“Automated suspension is when the system suspends teachers when their resumption of duty is not registered in the system,” Sori said.
“It is a normal process that falls in around this time of the year.”
He said the suspension of teachers from the payroll had nothing to do with their failure to register with the national identification system.
“Teachers who have gone on auto suspension should not mistake this to be from their non-registration for national identification with the Civil and Identity Registry,” he said.
“It’s solely due to their not resuming duty.”
The biggest number of teachers put off the payroll are in East Sepik with 1042, Madang with 1112, Morobe with 1439, Eastern Highlands with 984, Western Highlands with 906 and Bougainville with 511. Other provinces are below 400.
Sori has again urged the provincial education divisions to immediately send the teachers’ forms to the payroll division so their pay can be restored.
There are more than 56,000 teachers in the country.
Sori has also urged all teachers to complete the NID registrations tasked by the Education Department by the end of this year, saying that their resumptions next year would be determined by their NID registration status.