Malawi govt owes teacher Saccos K1.6 billion

Malawi’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology says it will next month start remitting part of the K1.6 billion (about $4m) owed to some lending institutions, which were deducted from teachers’ salaries since 2012.

Minister responsible Lucious Kanyumba said this on Wednesday in Parliament.

For over a year, teachers have not been able to access loans from Savings and Credit Cooperatives (Sacco) despite monthly deductions from their salaries.

Earlier this month, the Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) threatened that teachers would down tools if the ministry did not act on the remittances with speed.

From the 2012/13 financial year, the ministry owes Saccos about K232 million (about $580 000) while from July 2013, the ministry owes K96 million (about $240 000), K78 million (about $195 000) from August deductions, K433 million (about $1.08m) from September deductions and K816 million (about $2m) from October deductions.

In response to a supplementary question, Kanyumba confirmed that his ministry had not been remitting payments to Saccos since 2012 due to system and network failures at the ministry, including blackouts.

He said following the end of the 2012/13 financial year, funds which should have been remitted to the Saccos reverted to the Treasury.

“We have made a fresh request to the Treasury to pay the outstanding arrears to the institutions owed. The 2013/14 payments will be processed and paid as soon as the Accountant General can issue cheques,” Kanyumba said.

Kanyumba said remittances for July and August, 2013 had been processed, but at the time the Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) was suspended as a result of discoveries of theft at Capital Hill.

“The ministry will do everything possible so that this should not happen again,” Kanyumba said.