-Housing fund details still being worked on
President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union Colin Bynoe says the union will be looking to ensure boarding school teachers who live in are properly compensated under the new wage deal to be discussed with government to replace the 2006-2010 wage package agreement.
Speaking to Stabroek News on Saturday Bynoe noted that the formal discussions have not started and that they were in the midst of getting their documentation together to present to the Ministry of Education.
However, he highlighted the boarding school issue saying that he believed it was critical.
“We will be looking for an allowance for those teachers because they are responsible for those kids, not the ones who teach and go home, the ones who live in. we have a responsibility to them,” he stated.
The GTU president said most of their positions have been written up and they are looking to make their presentation soon.
Meanwhile, Bynoe had told this newspaper last week that the teachers are hoping to start benefiting soon from the housing fund set up under the 2006-2010 wage package agreement.
He said they were still finalising the issue of interest rates with the banks. The union official added that the applicants were currently doing the necessary paperwork such as providing proof of ownership of land and hopefully they could come to a decision with the institutions by month end.
Bynoe said that while the rate being offered was good they had hoped to get a better deal.
The wage package agreement signed between the government and the GTU included the setting up of a $200 million revolving fund to build houses for teachers but to date not a single structure has been erected.
In July Bynoe had told this newspaper that there were still some modalities to be worked out with the commercial banks on how teachers would access the loans.
According to him, those conditions had included whether the loans would be interest-free and if the teachers would need to provide collateral. Several dozen persons were reportedly selected by lottery to benefit in the first round.
However, Minister of Education Shaik Baksh had said that the blame rested with the union for the delay in loans being granted.
“The union has had some reservations about the interest rates.
“They want a better interest rate and we had approached the New Building Society (NBS) and they had proposed 4.5 per cent which is one or 2 percentages down but the union did not accept that.”
According to Baksh, the union wanted to negotiate for better rates and it was there the bottlenecks arose. The minister added that there were charges attached to loans and they could not be granted “for free.”
However, Baksh had said the funds were available and teachers could access them if they so desired.
“There’s no problem really as long as the teacher has the land and want to go with the transport … they can access it,” he said.
Under the 2006-2010 package, $40 million was to be placed in the housing fund annually for the life of the agreement putting the total allocation at $200 million.
The package also included a five per cent per annum across-the-board increase for all categories of teachers; one per cent of the wage bill as a performance-based increment per annum for eligible teachers; increased remuneration for teachers who improved their qualifications; an annual clothing allowance of $6,000 per teacher; one-off duty-free concessions for vehicles for 100 head teachers per year; and 25 government-sponsored scholarships per year for teachers at the University of Guyana.
