NEWS
Ministry of Education Owes 17 workers for 48 months
By
Jul 19, 2007, 01:39

“Timap for Justice” a non governmental organization is calling on the Ministry of Education in Sierra Leone to fulfill its obligations to junior workers in two longstanding, egregious cases.

 According to Timap for Justice, seventeen junior workers of the Boys' Secondary School in Magburaka were wrongfully denied 48 months of salary and retirement benefits since they were retired in February 2004. Officials at the Ministry of Education, according to the non-governmental organization have confirmed that the workers are yet to be paid, but have failed to provide any remedy to their suffering.

For the past two years, this organization has been advocating on behalf of the suffering, but efforts have proved fruitless.

“At one point, the workers were asked to come to Freetown to receive payment, but when they arrived they were turned down” Timap recalled

 A large percentage of these workers are elderly men who were employed by Boys’ School for more than thirty years, seven of them, it is observed have died as a result of total poverty while the Ministry of Education has deliberately failed to respond and honour its financial obligation to them.

In a similar engagement, thirty junior workers of the former Bo Teacher's College were denied work, wages, and due process when Njala College took over the Bo Teacher's

College in 2006. The workers received letters indicating that they would be redeployed or retired, but never occurred and have not been paid or given work since April 2006.

The sad chapter is that both the Njala College and the Ministry of Education are pointing fingers at each other of being responsible; meanwhile the workers continue to languish.

“The Ministry and Njala College, should act immediately to right these shameful and longstanding injustices against people who have served their country for decades,” said Timap co-director Vivek Maru.

TheTimap for Justice is vigorously pursuing these cases to their final conclusion, contemplating legal recourse for both cases if positive action is not implemented on behalf of the suffering ex-workers.