By Elie Mutangana, Kigali
Over 5000 teachers from all eighteen provinces of Burundi have raised a flag over hard lives and inability to purchase needs, citing Government’s delay in their salaries.
The teachers, especially of the primary and secondary public schools, have expressed concerns of failing to pay their rents as well as feeding their families.
The have been normally banking on salaries to survive.
While the government has been pledging to allocate the salaries, teachers have not yet received anything on their accounts so far.
An anonymous source in Bujumbura lamented that the situation is worse, as the price of foodstuffs and services have been soaring.
“The new academic year is set to start very soon. We are worried that we will not afford to buy school materials for our own kids. For instance, the price for a notebook has increased from FBu 2000 to FBu 2500”.
Another source recounted that they are not being allowed to access loans from financial institutions, and are treated like other public workers whom are legitimately allowed loans from the instructions.
“Some banks and microfinance institutions can not give us loans incase we need money for use. They don’t trust our salaries to be collaterals,” a source said.
According to him, the Teachers membership-based microfinancial institution which have been lending the members have run out of money due to the huge traffic of loan seekers.
Officials in Burundi responded that they are collecting lists of unpaid teachers from district to district, and assured to allocate salaries very soon.
“We are receiving lists to make sure we give salaries to concerned teachers because there are others who got theirs,” said an official from Bujumbura.
He added that Burundi looks to launch a strong teacher’s fund which is expected to help teachers access loans for business and mobilize their saving culture.
According to Burundi’s Ministry of Public Labour, Teachers account for 54% of the public labours in the country.
Last year, Burundi mandated equal renumeration for females and males.
