POSITIONS of about 4 000 civil servants were found to have been faulty and are currently being re-evaluated, says Secretary to Cabinet Frans Kapofi.

Asked for an update about the new grading system that government has implemented this week, Kapofi said that government will conclude the evaluation of the 4 000 jobs in about a week's time.

He said the re-evaluation might be the cause of the delay of payments as they could not pay out workers in categories that are still being evaluated.

Kapofi confirmed that there are people who have not received their new payments as a result of the re-evaluation of the 4 000 people.

According to him, as they researched into who earns what in government, they discovered that there were those who were overpaid and the others who were underpaid.

"We want to make sure that the system works because it is made for the people," he said.

The salary revamp has attracted criticism as well as praise since its enactment, considering that the current process will affect about two thirds of the 93 000 government employees and its implementation this year cost nearly N$2 billion. The public service has about 264 job categories and each category is divided into four to six functional levels .

The secretary to Cabinet said the new salary structure which would run until 2018 is progressive, despite facing challenges during the regrading process.

"There are difficulties because there are people who are not happy. Some people feel they system is there to take them on which is not the case," he said.

A section of civil servants have critisised the the new system and some even branded the rewards of the exercise as "peanuts" while another section lauded the new system.

Kapofi said the issues raised by some civil servants are "genuine concerns" and they are working on efforts to address the shortcomings.

The salary changes are contained in a document titled 'Reward Management', will be known as the Public Service Pay and Grading structure.

According to a correspondence written by the Office of the Prime Minister at the end of June, "back pay from 1 April 2013 (date of implementation) will start from the second week of July 2013. The correct salary will be on the pay slip at the end of July 2013".

Government has failed for many years to implement a performance management appraisal system that it adopted and the proposed new system is seen to be its effort to finally put a workable job reward system in place.

The pay structure was set up by the Office of the Prime Minister with the help of British consultants Pilat HR Solutions.

According to preliminary recommendations, teaching and nursing staff, who went on an illegal strike last year, would be among the biggest winners in the salary regrading recommendations.

Total article comments: 9

Latest comments

category D was the worst affected, simple, pay according to our qualification and experience.. how can i be paid less or the same with some position, who thy have grade 10 and 12 only, after regrading most started at their maximum before regrading - james moody

one basic element to fundamental stability and social peace amid grand wage re-negotiation is not to temper with wage relativity. Human species shall never be satisfied however much you might want to pay them (something we cannot afford to do anyways) but tempering with historical wage relativity is highly a probable cause of social agony. This should have been a sacred principle throughout the whole orientation. Hiring an alien to attach monetary value to ones toil so a to see how much they are worth is subjective, highly questionable and unsettling. - Negumbo

I found it interesting that the public servants are now highly paid. Let them render equivalent service. It is therefore my call to the public service commission to put measures in place to monitor the services rendered by civil servants - please stop the syndrome of office time facebooking. - Dr Hango

we want to know why is that receipts are not printed when it come to backpays. just for us to know how much we are suppose to get and what deductions were made and what is deposited into our accounts in black and white. please. why did Hod and principals got so much with regarding while all they do is delegate to normal teacher. some can not even write communication letter to parents they only sign after teachers have done it. come to schools and see who really do much. normal teacher do so much we stand for 5 hours teaching with no off periods. when you are done you take books home to mark and prepare. the hods and principal have many off periods and sit in offices and talk on their phones or playing games on computers, chating on facebook and after that they come to teacher and demand or stress as. please re-grade according to job that people do and not where you sit as a boss. that is giving money for nothing. Normal teachers who stand infront of learners for 5 days a week and think of learners in weekends need more if this is done according to job descriptions and not positions. please let us be realistic. - tulimo

we want to know why is that receipts are not printed when it come to backpays. just for us to know how much we are suppose to get and what deductions were made and what is deposited into our accounts in black and white. please. why did Hod and principals got so much with regarding while all they do is delegate to normal teacher. some can not even write communication letter to parents they only sign after teachers have done it. come to schools and see who really do much. normal teacher do so much we stand for 5 hours teaching with no off periods. when you are done you take books home to mark and prepare. the hods and principal have many off periods and sit in offices and talk on their phones or playing games on computers, chating on facebook and after that they come to teacher and demand or stress as. please re-grade according to job that people do and not where you sit as a boss. that is giving money for nothing. Normal teachers who stand infront of learners for 5 days a week and think of learners in weekends need more if this is done according to job descriptions and not positions. please let us be realistic. - tulimo

why too big gap beteewn categoryD TEACERS & HOD?. what do hod do? ,nothing!. they work is as simple as that of the teacher u ar underpaying. they holding the same certificates , years experiences ,as well as work load as teachers. why are we treated in that way. RE~evaluate our salary scale pls!.at least 2000 difference is reasonable not 4000 or 5000 is too huge. justices is required here seriously.

One cannot make everyone happy same time. every day has a beginning. Those that are not happy will be happy one day. be patient CDEs - Mr Niilonga

low ranked in NDF were never regraded,what is this 53 you gave us?!, - Salomon Barcelona

we category D teachers not happy with regrading system. thats peanut u present to us.why not using the same bloom to both categories in our education level. we all do the same work.and on the other hand u ar dicouraging us to study further. - concerned teacher