Zesco workers question managers' tour allowances

Zesco workers question managers' tour allowances
By Bivan Saluseki
Friday February 23, 2007 [02:00]

ZESCO Limited employees have questioned the over K80 million social tour allowances being paid to top management at the utility company at the expense of service provision. But Zesco director human resource John Luswanga yesterday said the money being paid as 'social tour allowances' were merely holiday allowances, which were part of the directors' conditions of service.

Sources yesterday revealed that management at ZESCO had continued to advance themselves hefty allowances even when the company was failing to provide services to its customers. "Right now we don't have enough fuses, no adequate poles, no utility vehicles and cables," disclosed sources. "We have a backlog of people who have paid in full to have their premises connected to the power lines. Now for more than two years, they have not been connected. There is definitely something rotten going on here."

According to sources, management had been advancing themselves loans not applicable to ordinary workers. "Even the Kawambwa incident where two Zesco employees died after being electrocuted, Zesco did not have a vehicle of its own. It had to borrow a vehicle from ZAMTEL in Kawambwa. The ones who went to work on the 30 KV power line were casual workers. One of them even died. The other one was supposed to retire soon," said the source.

The sources said management had been paying themselves social tour expenses and hiding in hefty gratuities. The sources said top management was supposed to focus on resuscitating the company first instead of paying themselves huge allowances.

According to documentation, Zesco director of engineering services Musonda Chibulu was paid K89.7 million under cheque number 11831 on May, 25 2005 as social tour expenses and K408.5 million being long-service gratuity. Former director distribution and supply Alex Matele was paid K89.7 million for social tour under cheque number 11828 on May 29, 2005. Further payments of K89.7 million were also made to Stanslous Mwape the former director customer services and director human resource John Luswanga too.

The sources said government needed to check what was happening at Zesco seriously because most senior managers were hiding in gratuities and too many allowances being awarded to themselves. "What hurts us is that all this money is supposed to help improve Zesco's inefficiency. Right now if you have a power failure, a reaction time is unimaginable," said the sources. "People can just work for one year and get K1 billion gratuity. Others can work for 25 years and fail to get a pension of K50 million." The sources said even loans had become a preserve for senior managers only. However, Luswanga said the figures were fake. "Those figures are fake. And who is releasing that information? It's surprising. Social tours are just like holiday allowances. Even you when you go on leave, you get some allowance. Some people get a month salary," he said.

Luswanga said the payments being made under social tours were part of the conditions of service. He said ZESCO was a public company with its activities open to scrutiny and nothing could be swept under the carpet. Luswanga said the conditions of service were part of the contract. "We can't do anything out of the ordinary," he said. Luswanga said conditions of service for unionised staff were reviewed every two years and management had their own conditions too.