School cleaners face bleak Christmas with no pay

HUNDREDS of primary school cleaners are facing a bleak Christmas as the Ministry of Education has failed to release the quarterly grant for their payment.

Association of Denominational Boards of Education chairman Sharon Mangroo confirmed on Friday that schools have not received the grant for October, November, December or January, which amounts to millions of dollars.

She said funds are normally released late after the budget has been passed.

“But this is very late. Knowing the financial situation in the country, we have not protested publicly. Over the past months we have been scrambling to find funds to pay people. But we can’t cover three months.”

She said some boards are desperate.

“The thing is, when you borrow you pay back with interest, but we don’t get money with interest from the government. We get the same amount.”

Cleaners, who are usually paid around the same time as public servants, are expecting their salaries to be in their accounts by Monday, as December salaries are paid earlier.

But Mangroo said even if the money is deposited directly into the accounts of the boards on Monday, there is no guarantee cleaners will be paid before Christmas as it would take several days for deposits to clear.

She said Education Minister Anthony Garcia expressed surprise that the money had not been released when she spoke to him about the matter. She said investigations showed someone in the ministry decided to verify that the number of cleaners was compatible with the size of the schools, and in the process, funds were withheld.

“I know the minister is a man of action, and he assured they are working on it,” said Mangroo, who is a member of the Catholic board.

“People tend to jump to the conclusion, 'Oh, it is the board schools.' Yes, they are our schools. Seventy-one per cent of the primary schools are owned by the denominational boards. But we don’t have the responsibility to provide schooling. It is the duty of the ministry to provide schools for school-aged children.

"We facilitate by making the school buildings available to the Ministry of Education. So the Ministry of Education pays the teachers, assists with the maintenance and upkeep, and they assist with the cleaning by giving a grant to the board.”

Referring to the policy paper the ministry has put out for discussion, Mangroo said the association wants further discussions with the ministry on the way it engages them.

“We are not just any stakeholder. We own the majority of the schools," she said. "There has to be a better way, a more courteous way of engaging with the owners of the schools. You cannot go three months without paying people with no word to them, and only when we call and start to fuss we get any action. That’s very discourteous.”