K213 billion aid to 1,000 retrenched Zamtel workers

K213 billion aid to 1,000 retrenched Zamtel workers
By Chibaula Silwamba
Sat 04 Sep. 2010, 04:01 CAT

About K213 billion has been paid to over 1,000 former employees of privatized Zamtel, Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) director for investment promotion privatization Muhabi Lungu said yesterday.

Reacting to concerns about the delays to pay former employees of Zamtel that were declared redundant by the new management under Libya’s LAP Green Network that bought the telecommunication company’s 75 per cent shareholding, Lungu said ZDA and LAP Green Network was doing everything possible to pay all former employees their dues within the agreed 60 days.

He explained that money to pay for redundancy packages was deposited into an escrow account, from which others had been paid.

“The joint signatories to the escrow account are ZDA and LAP Green, and I am a co-signatory to that account. I have actually been signing cheques from our bank to employees’ accounts. We receive a lot of acknowledgments that they have received the money,” Lungu said.

“According to the transaction documents, the process of paying off the redundancies was supposed to happen at least within 60 days upon the take over of new management. We are still within that 60 days; it has not elapsed and it is our intention to try and meet the deadline of 60 days and pay everyone who has been declared redundant.

“So far, as of Wednesday and everyday we are processing, we have paid 1, 130 employees and about K213 billion has been paid out from our escrow account to the employees.”

He noted that the process would take long because of the rigorous verification systems.

“We want to ensure that this thing is done as smoothly as possible. In some cases we have made it but in some cases there will be some hitches but for people to use it as a threat it’s not fair; that is not how decent human beings in a civilized country are supposed to live,” he said. “We want every employee that has been declared redundant paid.”

Lungu said during the Zamtel privatization, ZDA had been as transparent as possible.

He asked journalists to cross check their information with ZDA concerning the Zamtel transaction before publishing stories that might be inaccurate.

“We have tried to keep the press always informed of what is going on at any given time,” said Lungu. “Whoever went to tell The Post reporter was deliberately being malicious, to say that nobody has been paid is not true because we have paid employees; we started this process about two weeks ago and we have a very rigorous process.”