Over 100 waiting for fares

MORE than 100 primary and elementary school teachers in Port Moresby spent the Christmas weekend without their leave entitlements following non-payment by the provincial education office.
The National Capital District Education Services (NCDES) Office said a technical error, within their office, had forced the delay in processing leave applications with the collected cheques (from the Department of Finance) to pay leave fares for the teachers received after Christmas.
NCDES superintendent for school operations and teacher appointments Omoka Boge said their office was screening and listing teachers with their payments to be done.
Joseph Dengari, a teacher at Kaugere Primary School, said most of the teachers had been waiting for their leave entitlements for the past two weeks and were forced to spend Christmas without anything.
He told The National that another concern for the teachers waiting was the cut in payments with a handful of teachers from vocational and secondary schools receiving payment cuts.
“We’ve all become impatient and worried about the payments because we will all be stranded back in our homes with nothing much to celebrate,” he said.
“There seems to be errors in the requested travel agencies.
“Some teachers get their leave fares paid to travel agents that they did not request to in their leave applications.
“The least we deserve at this time is the proper information on when they are going to be ready because they need to clarify and tell us why it is taking so long and be realistic with us so that we don’t get our hopes up.”