Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says the pay­ment of back­pay owed to teach­ers will not be com­plet­ed by the end of this month, even as re­vised salaries have al­ready be­gun to reach ed­u­ca­tors.

His com­ments come amid re­newed con­cern from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), which re­cent­ly con­firmed that teach­ers are ex­pect­ed to re­ceive up­dat­ed salaries by month-end but not­ed there was no clear in­di­ca­tion that ar­rears would be paid at the same time.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, Tan­coo said TTUTA it­self had ac­knowl­edged that new salaries were al­ready be­ing paid, but ex­plained that the process of cal­cu­lat­ing ar­rears re­mains on­go­ing with­in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.