Makurdi – Dr. Wilfred Uji, Executive Secretary, Benue Teachers Service Board (TSB), has expressed surprise at the static wage bill of teachers “in spite of deaths and retirements”.
“The wage of teachers in Benue is more than N600 million and has remained static in spite of deaths and retirements by many teachers. This is surprising and unacceptable,” Uji told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Makurdi.
He said that the board had about 6000 teachers in 300 schools, and vowed to dig into why the wage bill was static in spite of the shrinking workforce.
Uji suggested the need to involve the board in the preparation of staff salaries to ensure that the names of deceased and retired staff were removed from the payment voucher.
“At the moment, payment vouchers are prepared from the office of the Accountant General without any input from the board.
“We want payment vouchers of our staff prepared by the board; we want to get to the root of the static wage bill in spite of all factors,” he said.
He urged the financial intelligence unit of the state to investigate the static wage bill to know where the problems were emanating from.
Uji, who said that teachers were evenly distributed across the schools, explained, however, that they used to reject postings to rural areas over security challenges.
He commended Gov. Samuel Ortom for the Anti-Open Grazing law which was addressing the violent clashes that had often scared teachers from accepting to serve in the rural areas.
He also decried the dearth of science teachers in secondary schools, and urged government to recruit more to meet rising needs.
The chairman decried the poor state of facilities in the board, and particularly regretted the lack of functional operational vehicles which had made it impossible to monitor and supervise schools.
Uji said that the board had initiated measures to improve the working conditions of teachers, and urged them to be dedicated to their duties and expose all forms of misdeeds in the workplace. (NAN)