Maravi

Kitwe SESTUZ members protest over unpaid housing allowances

Kitwe SESTUZ members protest over unpaid housing allowances
Written by Mwila Chansa in Kitwe
Sunday, January 18, 2009 5:59:29 AM

SECONDARY school teachers in Kitwe resolved to stop reporting for work starting last Friday to press the government to settle allowances.

Kitwe district chairperson Evans Lifuka said Secondary School Teachers Union of Zambia (SESTUZ) members had given the government up to January 30 to pay them fixed band housing allowances, 10 per cent owners’ occupier and current housing allowances for May last year.

Lifuka warned that the teachers would not return to work if the government did not meet their demands.

In an interview after a meeting with teachers affiliated to SESTUZ at Helen Kaunda High School in Kitwe on Friday, Lifuka explained that the teachers' resolution meant that they would not report for work.

"We have agreed to go on a 'workers' protest' until further notice because the government has abrogated its responsibility to deal with our demands since 2003," Lifuka said.

Among the demands that teachers want the government to meet include payment of the fixed band housing allowance that dates back to 2003, payment of the 10 percent owners' occupier and the current housing allowance for the month of May last year that had not been paid to SESTUZ Kitwe District members.

Lifuka said the government owed each teacher a total of about K2.3 million.

And Lifuka said teachers thought it was nonsensical for the national union leadership to engage in any form of negotiation with the government regarding improved conditions of service because they had failed to honour the previous collective agreements.

He added that teachers were fed up with promissory notes or technical committees and all they wanted was their money.

"We are not fools, we are even more educated than some of the people enjoying the economic cake," he charged.

Lifuka said the issue of inadequate resources should not arise because the government could find money just as it did for constitutional office holders.

Labels: EVANS LIFUKA, SESTUZ

posted by MrK @ 6:00 AM