About 1,800 Kano teachers, employed at the twilight of the immediate-past administration of Gov. Rabiu Kwankwaso, are being owed salaries and allowances for eight months.
The teachers were employed and posted to public schools across the 44 local government areas of the state in February.
PREMIUM TIMES gathered that most of the teachers worked for several months as casual staff before the confirmation as permanent and pensionable employees early this year.
After eight months of working without salaries, the teachers complained that they were finding it difficult to get to their places of work every morning.
One of the affected teachers, who requested that his identity be protected, told our reporter that the government likely withheld their salaries because it was planning to retrench some of them.
“If that rumour is not true, why don’t they pay us?” he said.
“Several promises have been made to us, that we are going to be paid soon, but nothing was paid to us. We are tired of hearing the empty promises. I can say the government is treating us with disdain,” he said.
Another teacher who also did not also want his name disclosed, said some of his colleagues had dumped the work because they had no means to continue going to the schools any longer.
“We staged a protest at the emir’s place sometime ago, so that the emir would intervene and yet nothing was done,” he decried.
When contacted, Usman Bello, the Director of Press to the deputy governor, Hafiz Abubakar, who doubles as commissioner of Education, said the government was working towards ensuring that the entitlement of the teachers were paid soon.
The deputy governor’s spokesman attributed the problem to the recent financial challenges the state was facing.
“They should bear with the government because of the economic crisis it has found itself,” he said.
“The government is working towards ensuring that the education sector gets the best. This includes settling the salaries of the workers,” he said.