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Tanzania: Reject July Salaries, Workers Union Urges
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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
25 July 2008
Posted to the web 25 July 2008
Bernard James
Workers should reject their July salaries and go on leave, the Trade Union Confederation of Tanzania (Tucta) said yesterday.
It said it was making the call following a tip-off that the Government would not pay them the six-month salary arrears as promised in January.
The workers are now considering industrial action, saying they have lost patience because the Government was dilly-dallying on their lives.
"We have information that the July salaries are going to be paid without arrears. What we are waiting for is the new salary package and six months' arrears and not otherwise", the Tucta secretary general, Mr Nestory Ngula, said in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
The workers move comes after the government made an assurance last January that by July the lowest paid civil servant would take home Sh100,000, up from the previous Sh80,000.
The government further committed itself to start paying the delayed arrears which workers were supposed to start getting last January. Before the announcement, the minimum wage was Sh80, 000.
Public Service Management official Frederic Mmbaga told journalists last month that sufficient funds had been set aside in this year's budget to cater for the revised salaries and arrears.
To ensure all was set for the payment, the minister of State in the President's Office (Public Service Management), Ms Hawa Ghasia, reiterated that the Government would back-date the arrears to January.
She said salary arrears from January to June would be paid to 300,000 civil servants starting from July this year.
And in her budget speech, Ms Ghasia told parliament in Dodoma that the Government planned to spend Sh1.458 trillion to cater for salary expenses.
The amount is an increase of Sh277 billion, equal to 24 percent increase, compared to Sh1.180 billion of last year.
The minister said, among other expenses, the amount would be spent on payment of new salaries and their arrears.
Ms Ghasia was not available for comment yesterday, and the spokesperson for the ministry, Ms Zamaradi Kawawa, was not quite sure the July salary package would come out with the arrears.
However, she said she was "100 per cent" sure that workers would receive the new salaries this month.
Tucta said it had fillers that the July salaries prepared by the Treasury were without arrears as promised. It therefore vowed to stage an industrial action to press for the payment.
"Our patience has taken us here today where the government is playing on us", said the chairman of the Tanzania Teachers Association, CWT, Mr Gratian Mkoba.
The government issued a circular last May on salary adjustments for public servants. It stated that the new salaries would go up from Sh80,760 to Sh100,000.
The circular said because new changes could not be accommodated in the 2007/2008 budget, the government would start paying public servants the salary rise plus the six months' arrears this month.
Workers sounded a strong warning yesterday that the government should not dare fool them with unfounded excuses that it had no funds to effect the increment.
They feel neglected and wonder how the government could opt to raise allowances for senior officials from Sh65,000 to Sh80,000 a day.
"This is a Sh25,000 rise per day, which means that a four-day allowance for a senior government official is enough to pay the minimum wage for one civil servant.
"Where does the money for allowance increments come from if there is no money to pay us", wondered the secretary general of the Tanzania Union of Government and Health Employees (Tughe), Mr Ally Kiwenge.
"We announce here today that obedient servants are now tired of being obedient", the chairman of the Tanzania Local Government Workers Union (Talgwu), Mr Jackson Makongwa, added his voice.
The workers' leaders said they would not accept reasons for delay given by the government because they were a joke.
"They should not underestimate this issue. We want our payment and an unqualified apology for this act," they added.
However, when reached for comment as we went to press, the minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Mustafa Mkulo, strongly denied the claim. He emphasized that the government would pay all its workers their deserving dues.
He said the ministry had opened a special account for the arrears and all workers would receive both the new salaries and corresponding arrears this July as stated in the budget.
"It is not true at all. Workers would receive their new salaries and arrears. The problem is that preparation of the salaries is not a simple undertaking even by using computers. However, all arrears and new salaries would be paid this month," he stressed.
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He said his ministry will today issue a statement to assure the workers that all would go as planned.
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