Education Minister Anthony Garcia has requested a meeting with his Finance and Accounts department after he described the ministry’s habit of late payments to contractors, schools, and students as ‘unacceptable.’
Speaking with Guardian Media yesterday, Garcia admitted that several of the issues he’s had to face in 2018 was due to funding.
Garcia said there are too many instances where there is a delay in receiving and processing invoices before they go to the Ministry of Finance for approval.
“To me, the excuse of waiting on the Ministry of Finance is often proffered, we have to put our house in order first,” the minister said during an interview at his ministry’s headquarters on St Vincent Street, Port- of- Spain.
Using the example of payments to school maxi taxi drivers to highlight the broken system, Garcia said, “We have a problem where each one blames the other, we have some concerns with PTSC, I can tell you we only received the invoices from PTSC for September payments on the 19th of December and that is totally unacceptable.”
Garcia did not want to blame the delays solely on paperwork. He said they’ve also been given a mandate from the Ministry of Finance to go through the invoices with a fine tooth comb.
With regard to outstanding payments for contractors in the school repair programme, the minister said he has been in contact with the Ministry of Finance, Planning and the Attorney General and he has been given the assurance that most contractors can be paid before the end of this year.
He said, “That will give us the opportunity to be able to start or restart construction at some schools, we have identified 22 schools which we consider as priority schools and we are hoping that very early in the New Year construction can resume.”