Its in the public domain that teachers are yet to receive their May 2023 salaries and allowances.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is behind schedule in paying its employees more so teachers who usually get their salaries by 28th each month.
The Commission is yet to issue a public statement on why the delay in releasing teachers salaries as well as meeting third party obligations which include paying loans to banks and Sacco’s.
TSC is the biggest employer followed by county governments. However the biggest teacher employer is yet to pay its workers.
Sources close to the Commission warn teachers not to be very comfortable earning salary to salary each month especially with the current state of government coffers.
One of the TSC insiders say the government is very broke and that its struggling to meet its financial demands which include paying its teachers.
Another insider however dispute this claim and says TSC is under pressure to ensure all newly recruited junior secondary school teachers get their salaries this month.
He says all the teachers must be captured in this month payroll to ensure no one misses pay again.
His sentiments comes barely a month after TSC released a statement on fate of 17,800 junior secondary school (JSS) teachers who missed salaries for three months.
The Commission secretary, Nancy Macharia, had said the delayed payments was attributed to teachers arriving at their work stations later than expected, causing issues with salary processing.
“The procedure is the recruits are given 30 days to report to their various stations, which leads to some commencing work later than others,” said TCS chief executive Nancy Macharia.
She added, “This sometimes causes delays in processing of their salaries. So far, the commission has processed over 50 per cent of salaries of the newly employed teachers.”
Ms Macharia said that the payment delay may also be due to late submission of required documents by the affected employees.
Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu directed TSC to ensure the teachers are paid their salaries expeditiously.
Speaking when he appeared before the National Assembly plenary for grilling by MPs, the CS regretted that more than 50 per cent of the teachers recruited by the TSC were yet to be paid.
Some of the teachers have not received salaries since February when they reported for duty.
“I want to apologize to our teachers for the delay in payment. There are those that we have been unable to pay. As of today when I discussed with the CEO of the Teachers Service Commission, it was confirmed that almost fifty percent of the newly employed teachers have been paid and the other fifty percent, I’m getting information from the feed so we can pay them. I assure you that funds are available and we will be able pay expeditiously,” said Machogu.
The CS was responding to a query by Nominated MP Sabina Chege on the delayed payment of salaries.
He said the delayed salaries was occasioned by different reporting times of the teachers to the schools they were posted.
The junior secondary school teachers reported to their workstations in February and others in March.
Salary delay causes a lot of inconveniences to teachers let us be paid in time so that we can settle our debts