![]() THE Education Department could find itself without office space this year, as the academic year is set to begin at the end of the month. Education secretary Dr Uke Kombra said the department had received no definite answers of which building to use after they had been evicted from their office at the FinCorp building in Waigani, due to unsettled rentals. The department was forced to use the Papua New Guinea Education Institution and Port Moresby National School of Excellence during the school end-of-year break. “We cannot operate from these buildings in the new academic year which starts in two weeks’ time,” he said.
Kombra said they had taken their plight to relevant state agencies asking them to pay the landlord Grand Columbia and agreeing to a fixed repayment plan, but there had been no tangible outcome from those discussions. Teaching Service Commission (TSC) chairman Samson Wangihomie said the department had a large number of officers and divisions and they needed to sort out the issue quickly or it would disrupt the education year. Wangihomie added that staff performance, services and roles would be greatly impacted potentially affecting schools in the country. “We hope that the government pays the landlord or has other buildings for us to settle in before classes resume,” he said. According to media reports, Education Department employees were locked out of the FinCorp building last October due to outstanding rentals totalling up to K39 million. Kombra said the Finance Department was responsible for paying rentals for government departments and to date, they had not given a favourable response to the issue. Attempts to get comments from Finance secretary Dr Ken Ngangan were unsuccessful. The National / PNG Education news Also read : Worry Over PNG Education Bottleneck Comments are closed.
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