The Kogi State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) had at the last weekend, paid over 200 teachers who could not take their January and February salaries due to wrong data entries.
The Executive Chairman of SUBEB, Malam Nuhu Ahmed, who disclosed this in an impromptu encounter with The Graphic, said 95 per cent of the problems emanated from the failure of the teachers to comply with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) ten digit account numbers (NUBAN) and the purported under-payment was solved at the weekend.
He maintained that the delay in the payment that was said to be omission was caused by the affected teachers as they either filled incorrect account numbers or in some instances, replaced the account numbers with their telephone numbers.
Malam Ahmed explained that when SUBEB accountants went to their respective banks to effect the e-payment, they realised to their chagrin that the affected teachers made wrong entries and their accounts could not be credited.
In the last interview, the SUBEB chairman had with The Graphic two weeks ago, he said, ‘’what teachers are calling under- payment or over- payment is the difference after the adoption of Kogi State Civil Service Scale as stipulated by edict establishing SUBEB.’’
Going by the harmonisation of the salary scales, he explained that ‘‘we succeeded in bringing all teachers to 75 per cent of the minimum wage’’ against the situation where some teachers were collecting 62 per cent and others were collecting 93 per cent.
In spite of agitation from Education Secretaries to stop the- payment which enabled the teachers to be paid directly from SUBEB headquarters, the Executive Chairman said it was the most civilised method for meeting salary obligation, stressing that the Board would continue with it.
Source: The Graphic
