A senior teacher at the St Edwards Primary School, Fort Street in Freetown, Patrick Tucker has made his colleagues gone haywire as he yanked away their October salaries.
The school’s deputy head teacher, Tema Sylvester Sylvalie, narrated to Awoko that Mr Tucker as a senior teacher was tasked with the responsibility of collecting his colleagues’ salaries until recently when he stole their October salaries.
Mr Sylvalie explained that there were four teachers who were no longer in the school’s paying scheme but their salaries were sent into the school’s bank account.
He heightened that Mr Tucker normally showed bank receipts that he had returned the surplus to the bank. “These receipts we later learnt were being falsified,” he said, adding that “we discovered Mr Tucker’s pranks when we asked him on 31st October to collect our October salaries which was being paid into our account on the 20th.”
Mr Sylvalie explained that when Mr Tucker started dithering, “I was forced to go to the bank, because my colleague teachers were now restless as they were demanding their salaries. When I went to the bank I was taken aback only to find out that our account was in the red…”
Mr Sylvalie explained that after an in-house inquiry, “Mr Tucker confessed to the entire staff that he discovered a surplus of Le. 9.6 million in the school’s account and so he wasted no time in clearing it…”
“His brother Lesley Tucker and Mrs Claire Kamara intervened and begged that we settled the matter in-house and signed as guarantors in ensuring that Mr Tucker pays back the money. Since we released him we never saw him again and the stipulated time for the payment has passed,” the deputy head teacher said.
A teacher at the school, Mr Deawood disclosed to Awoko that the guarantors had handed over the alleged culprit to the police.
“On Monday [today] we are not going to teach, we are going to close down the school until we get our salaries and allowances, before anybody can gain access to the building,” he said.
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