Maravi

FFTUZ condemns Kanyama on laws to impress investors

COMMENT - Joyce Nonde for Finance Minister. She has my vote. :)

“Investors believe they are safer engaging casual labour as pensionable jobs may prove costly when the businesses no longer remain profitable and many parastatal companies are failing to restructure operations due to the huge compensation packages associated with downsising,” said Kanyama.

It is time the Zambian government became serious about governing. Pensions should be universal, and have nothing to do with employment - and the way to do that is to let all companies pay their pension to the state - through taxes. There are few enough old people around, so that is more than economically feasible.

FFTUZ condemns Kanyama on laws to impress investors
Written by Kabanda Chulu
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 3:06:11 PM

THE Federation of Free Trade Unions in Zambia (FFTUZ) yesterday condemned Lusaka economist Chibamba Kanyama for calling for laws that will impress investors.
On Monday, Kanyama said the government should urgently revise the Act governing redundancy packages to reflect investor challenges.

But FFTUZ president Joyce Nonde-Simukoko said in Lusaka that it was shocking and annoying to see Kanyama thinking along those lines.

“Our members are annoyed and shocked and Zambia should not be compared to other economies that are doing well since workers already are getting low packages and they have no opportunity to enhance their livelihoods under the current pensions Act,î Nonde-Simukoko said. ìIt is shocking to see our brother (Kanyama) thinking in those lines by calling for laws that will impress greedy investors.”

She said pension schemes and redundancy packages had been abused and even those who got benefits were thrown into abject poverty.

“Any redundancy package in this country has been abused even at Presidential level this is why the benefits are pegged at the incumbentís (sitting President) salary and conditions of service because these issues have been abused in Zambia and why are we enemies of ourselves by calling for laws to impress investors who are involved in capital flight and even when the environment is good and incentives given, they do not employ people on full-time,” Nonde-Simukoko said.

“So the issue of the economic crisis does not arise because investors are greedy and exploitative in nature, for example, when copper prices reached higher levels, they never considered Zambians as full time workers.”

She said the failure by mining companies to pay good redundancy packages was corporate greed and fraud that should not be allowed to continue.

“Investors are businessmen with a motive for profit, hence looking for loopholes like what our brother is proposing, these investors are greedy and are involved in corporate fraud, for instance, if there is no money to pay workers why are they spending so much to appease politicians by making donations at the expense of hard-working employees?” asked Nonde-Simukoko.

In his weekly commentary, Kanyama said the current redundancy packages Act had many challenges and had rendered the country uncompetitive for investments in the region.

He said many companies preferred to hire casual workers even when they had the capacity to engage pensionable jobs due to the high level of uncertainty in the investment climate.

“Investors believe they are safer engaging casual labour as pensionable jobs may prove costly when the businesses no longer remain profitable and many parastatal companies are failing to restructure operations due to the huge compensation packages associated with downsising,” said Kanyama.

Labels: CHIBAMBA KANYAMA, FFTUZ, JOYCE NONDE

posted by MrK @ 2:08 PM