My Annual Performance Assessment Payments will be made before the end of this financial year - AG

There is some good news as the “2017/2018 My Annual Performance Assessment Payments” will be made to the Ministry of Education staff who have been assessed and moderated as eligible for performance pay increase before the end of this financial year.

While confirming this in Parliament this morning, Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says this will be backdated to the first pay in August 2018.

He revealed this after NFP’s parliamentarian, Lenora Qereqeretabua asked Sayed-Khaiyum to inform as to when teachers will receive their Annual Performance Assessment pay rises that has been overdue for more than two years.

Sayed-Khaiyum says these payments are based solely on performance and not annual increments or bonuses that should be expected to be received in the form of pay rise.

He says the payments made under the My Annual Performance Assessment Payments are not pay rises but evidence and performance based salary increments to eligible civil servants to reward improved or consistency performance.

Sayed-Khaiyum adds that the moderation process at the Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts took longer than anticipated mainly due the lack of substantiated work units which is the school or department results for the comparison to the claims made by staff of the Ministry for payments.

He says the Ministry of Education is the largest Ministry as far as employees are concerned and currently there are 14,027 staff in the Ministry where 13,449 are teachers and 578 are non teaching staff.

When questioned how they will manage this exercise as there has been significant reduction in government revenue, Sayed-Khaiyum says they have to prioritise expenditure.