Guinea-Bissau orders suspension of teachers’ salaries to weed fictitious workers

Guinea-Bissau’s government has ordered the suspension of teachers’ salaries to weed out fraudulent claims on the payroll from fictitious workers.

Guinea-Bissau depends largely on external aid to meet salaries in the education sector, has declared a war on ghost civil servants in order to curb its wage bill.

The decision also instructed the education ministry to carry out a census of the number of its employees.

The decision will affect some 8 000 teachers in the country’s primary and secondary schools who earn on monthly salaries.

The International Monetary Fund, which reached a staff level agreement for a 3.16 million US dollars extended credit facility for Guinea Bissau in May, says the Bissau government missed three of its eight economic reforms targets that were due in March.

One of the missed targets was a ceiling on wages.

However, the President of Bissau’s National Union of Teachers, Domingos de Carvalho, said the union would appeal against the decision it called unfair.