Guinea Bissau pauses teachers’ pay to weed out fictitious workers
Guinea Bissau, which depends largely on external aid to pay salaries in the education sector, made the decision in a cabinet meeting on July 18. Guinea-Bissau’s government has ordered the suspension of teachers’ salaries to weed out fraudulent claims on the payroll from fictitious workers, according to a statement released on Thursday. The tiny West African country that 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. A July 18 decision by the country’s Council of Ministers that was published on Thursday 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 average around 50,000 CFA francs ($86) per month. The decision drew threats of action from a teaching union. The International Monetary Fund, which reached a staff-level agreement for a $3.16m