By Arowona Abdulazeez
Plans have commenced by the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) Kwars state chapter to establish a micro finance bank in the state to assist teachers in meeting their financial needs.
The State chairman of the Union, Alhaji Abubakar Musa made this disclosure in Ilorin , the Kwara State capital while responding to questions on a Radio Kwara personality interview programme “Playing Host”.
Alhaji Abubakar said as part of efforts to assist teachers and relief them of the untold hardship they are now passing through in the state, his leadership introduced the Investment End Way Scheme where members subscribe funds monthly and collect their contributions at the end of retirement from service.
The NUT chairman announced that a lot of teachers have already keyed into the scheme which is a revolving programme and have been paid their entitlements benefits.
Similarly , Alhaji Abubakar disclosed that the union keyed into the housing project of the state government by building teachers estate through their investment which has been completed and occupied by some of its members.
According to him, the union has also acquired another one hundred plots of land at Oko-olowo with the intention to build the phase two of the teachers estate and another eighty plots of land at Ogbodoroko through collaboration with the Federal Mortgage Bank.
He also disclosed that the leadership of the Union has reached out to the National Assembly , state houses of Assembly and even the traditional institutions in ensuring that their salaries were paid as at when due.
The NUT boss described the irregular payment of teachers salaries as his greatest worry and concern since he came on board as the Union chairman and called on the National Assembly to remove teachers from the local government covers explaining that the local authorities have the weakest allocation with over crowded financial burdens.
Alhaji Abubakar appealed to political office holders to guide the education sector religiously, strengthen the public schools and ensure that they patronize public schools by sending their children and wards to those institutions.
The NUT boss called on Nigerians to revert to the era of the National Primary Education Commission (NPEC) where teachers allocation are directly funded to take care of teachers salaries and other emoluments .
