Public service pay review

By ZARA KANU LEBO
THE Public Employers Association (PEA) has suggested to the Government to review the pay policy for public servants which had not been done since 2016.
Association general secretary Ugwalubu Mowana was responding to an article in The National on April 17, about public servants surviving on debt to creditors.
Public Service Minister Joe Sungi said the Government planned to amend the Public Service Management Act to control such loans.
Mowana said: “We want to encourage the Government to look deeper into the economic aspects of why public servants and workers are borrowing money despite the fact that they are on payroll in the public and private sector.
“While we acknowledge the legislature and public management service act can limit their borrowing, the issue confronting workers now is that their take-home pay cannot take them home. That is the biggest issue.
“One factor is borrowing heavily, but another is that the prices of goods and services have gone so high creating a high cost of living.”
He said Governments since Independence had failed to consider pay increases for public servants.
“No Government since Independence has ensured that the workers are well paid,” he said.
He hopes that unions will negotiate for better wages for public servants and move from the current pay policy in place, which is a 3 percent applied to salary increases and consumer price index (CPI) determinations annually since 2016.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Lucas Dekena has called on teachers to refrain from going on strike over the outstanding three per cent CPI payment.
“In our quest to make teaching a prestigious and honourable profession, our teachers must understand our position and must remain professional and conduct themselves ethically and not to follow the recent blackmail tactic by others,” he said.