English mentors to be paid next week

English mentors recruited from Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya to help improve the teaching of English in Rwandan Primary and Secondary schools will see their monthly salary for July and their arrears cleared by next week. The promise was made on Friday by Samuel Mulindwa, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Public Service and Labor (MIFOTRA). English mentors who are subcontractors for Rwanda Education Board (REB) approached MIFOTRA last month, claiming that the board was not honouring their contract because it still owes them some arrears for July and other allowances. Their complaints coincided with the new payment system whereby MIFOTRA pays them instead of being directly remunerated by institutions that seek their services. “We are integrating them in our payment system and early next week they will have their salaries for last month. For the arrears, they will have to present their evidence,” Mulindwa said. MIFOTRA is trying an Integrated Personal Payment System (IPPS) whose managers said when there is a minor error in the identification an employee is not recognised. A joint team of REB and MIFOTRA officials has collected the mentors’ required information in order to expedite their payments, Mulindwa said. Complaints Around 1000 English mentors were recruited in five instalments since last year and they were entrusted with two different schools each, where they work from Monday to Friday. They saluted the opportunity to be paid by MIFOTRA but also said that their pending claims should be clearly assessed. Norman Manzi who represents mentors from Uganda said that the mentors neither received the annual transport fee of Rwf 60,000 that every foreign mentor is entitled to get every year, nor the health insurance and pension fees that are deducted from their salaries. “REB owes us arrears for three months but they are not willing to address the issue,” he said. But Emmanuel Rutayisire, the Director General of REB, reassured the teachers that MIFOTRA will also tally their arrears and pay them soon. Though he could not reveal how much the government owes the mentors in arrears, he said that their problem should be understood from two perspectives. One cause of the arrears is that recruitments for the teachers did not take place at once while the other reason is that REB was too flexible in terms of application requirements, both of which delayed the processing of payments, Rutayisire explained. “We were expecting 6000 mentors at once but were surprised that neighbouring countries have a shortage. We did numerous recruitments, always getting a handful of applicants,” he said. “When MINECOFIN (Ministry of Finance) sees a list of new recruits, payment starts the following month but one (two months after)”. On the issue of annual transport, the official said that mentors did not understand that it is paid twelve months after starting work.