Tony Mwaba agrees with CADECO to facilitate payroll in hard-to-reach areas

The Minister of Primary, Secondary, and Technical Education (EPST), Professor Tony Mwaba Kazadi, received on Thursday, May 18, 2023, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Caisse Générale d’Épargne du Congo (CADECO), Mr. Jean-Pierre Dikoma, accompanied by the Managing Director, Juliette Mbambu Mughole, and the Technical Director, Asumani Michel. The purpose of this working session was to regularize the pay of the country’s teachers in hard-to-reach areas. 

The issue of teachers’ salaries is one of the challenges facing the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (EPST). Minister Tony Mwaba noted this while emphasizing that, to date, the government of the Republic is not behind schedule regarding either operating expenses or salaries; however, unfortunately, some of the operators involved in payroll processing have reached their limits. This is why this meeting with the CADECO board of directors was held—to determine to what extent CADECO can take over in areas where salary payments remain problematic. They have developed strategies to ensure that monthly payroll is both effective and regular.

"Work will continue to identify all problem areas and lead to the transfer of teacher payroll from certain operators to CADECO, which has just provided us with all the necessary guarantees to ensure the regularity of this operation," said the head of the EPST.

CADECO, which had approached the minister on May 4, expressed during this meeting its willingness to support the ministry. General Director Juliette Mbambu Mughole highlighted the existence of their branches across various regions of the DRC to ensure regular payments to teachers.

"We are the bank with the strongest presence in the country. In terms of deployment capacity, we will gradually move into the areas where we are established and where we have financial contacts. We are striving with our managerial expertise to revive CADECO, which has never gone bankrupt. It has the financial capacity to ensure payroll in certain areas. It does not wait for state funds, because there are certain areas where it collects funds from financial agencies, and even from certain public institutions such as FONER," she stated.

The Director General also noted that they will work on a compensation mechanism, a process that will be overseen by CADECO’s two technical departments, which will explore what can be done to ensure payroll payments can begin soon, as soon as the mechanism in question is launched.

For his part, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of this organization thanked the Minister of EPST, Professor Tony Mwaba, for his promptness and availability.

Christian BELLA