Itezhi-tezhi High School construction workers yesterday staged a protest at the District Commissioner’s office over alleged beatings and other bad conditions which a Chinese company has subjected them to.
More than twenty construction workers marched ,amid grumbling ,to the District Commissioner’s home. They were advised to go to the office where the Acting DC Hampende Hichilema would address them after ten minutes.
Ndonji Crispin who spoke on behalf of the construction workers complained about the ill-treatment by supervisors at Hua Tiang, a Chinese company which has been awarded the contract to finish phase two of Itezhi-tezhi High school.
“The Chinese supervising us at the construction site are beating us with sticks and making us work through out the week without resting, we report at 07:00 and knock off around 18:00 hours” he said.
He said that when workers complain of being overworked, they are insulted and told to leave their jobs because they claim that they can bring people from China to do the same job.
“We are working like slaves or foreigners in our own country, we do not have protective shoes, and they bought us canvass shoes instead of boots which were recommended by the inspectors”, he said.
Mr. Ndonji said that when the company gives them protective clothing such as overalls, their NRCs are grabbed from them, a situation which makes it difficult for them to access services such as getting money from banks or the post office.
He said that the Chinese contractors do not recognize sick leave and do not care whether someone falls sick during the course of their duty.
“When a worker falls sick, they just say go to the hospital, they do not help with anything and more over they deduct pay from the days you will be sick” he said.
He further said that the workers have been subjected to extremely low wages of K7, 000 per day adding that they are subjected to inhumane and demeaning treatment.
He complained that the workers are made to heap 100 wheelbarrows of crushed stone every day.
Meanwhile Acting Itezhi-tezhi District Commissioner Hampende Hichilema has assured the construction workers that his office would engage the Chinese company on the matters they had raised.
He said that his office would call the management on Tuesday to discuss the alleged beatings and inhumane conditions under which the workers are reported to be working at the High School.
ZANIS
Imwe, dont complain about utma Chinese kula twipaya fye one by one. Cat eating creatures !!!
Nambala 1 Meanwhile before LT gives us the Thread of the Millenium FTJ Acquitted !!!!!
lsktimes you slacking on your post game, Chiluba has been acquited where is your story?
Cut the bull, you know what to do. If someone beats you with a stick,do you stand and watch? stick him with a stick too
Oh my don chichi aquited oh no ! about the chinese lets hope what happened in lusaka continues i.e kutipishapo ..ha ha
Ka Chiluba a free man,what a justice system we got home, no wonder ife benangu sitiza bwela home, by the way when is that post news chic being aquited? we want her to be free to distribute pics
Beating employees with sticks shuwa? Iyo kwena ba Hua Tiang bakali.
in zambia we should stop thinking anyone with money is a god!!! we should not let outsiders be it chinese or otherwise to come in and do as they please!!! in china foreigners are given strict rules of conduct which should be followed by the T, break them and your visa is revoked!! in china a foreigner can not jus walk down the street and start beating a chinese at will without the whole community bouncing on you and in support of their countrymate regardless of who is in the wrong!! when dealing with the chinese we should be firm and direct and let them know who is in charge!! we should not have an enviroment where foreigners have more privelages than the local people !! because they don’t cut as any breaks in their countries! zed for zed people!!!!
Very sad indeed. But lots of Zambians could get beaten for among other reasons laziness, idleness, and generally a bad work atitude especially in Parastals and Civil servants.
# 4.Thats what a guy with brains does!
These guys they need chineese cropping,
The Chinese work ethic is very different from our own. They are capable of working 12 hours a day for 365 days. On the other hand, we Zambians are work shy. I can understand why the Chinese hold on to the NRCs. It is because if you give a Zambian casual worker boots and overalls, you will never see him again. A lot of friends I know prefer to employ Zimbabweans, Malawans and Tanzanians on their building sites. This is because they have been let down badly by fellow Zambians.
It is not only Chinese, alot of the so called investers are mistreating us and the government is just quiet. I wonder if we have the government which has the people of zambia at heart.
I do not condome beatings. But, on the other hand Zambians (or Africans), have a negative attitude towards work. A swam of Zambians want to do one little job and get paid for doing nothing. To be honest, a job done by 50 people in Zambia can be done by one man overseas. In Zambia an ordinary house of 5 bedrooms can take even up to a year building it, while here 4months is too much. And in German, it is not surprising for the same size of structure to take only 7 days. ZAMBIANS, CHANGE YOUR NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARDS WORK AND THE COUNTRY WILL DEVELOP OVERNIGHT.
K7,000 is ridiculously low, barely more than one dollar per day for actual work. Anyone could make more than that growing vegetables in a backyard.
This is what happens when a government worships ‘free trade’, ‘open markets’, ‘foreign direct investment’, at all cost, and probably corruptly.
Is this what independence is all about? Why does this government not have enough pride in it’s own people to create the jobs themselves, instead of waiting for foreign companies to bring everything to them?
What the country needs is a nationalist government, that taxes the mines to the max, invests that money in agriculture and manufacturing, and puts a huge tariff on anything Zambians consume and can manufacture themselves.
That will create more jobs than all the ‘foreign…
Peter,
” I do not condome beatings. But, on the other hand Zambians (or Africans), have a negative attitude towards work. ”
Don’t you think that a lack of work ethic doesn’t have more to do with not being compensated?
Who would work for K7,000 per day? That doesn’t even cover the cost of living.
07.00 to 18.00 is normal working hours worldwide. What are these guys complaining about. They need jobs or what? Its a Catch 22: Dismiss them, its a problem. Push them to work is a problem. China Man is doing the right thing. Only a shampoko can make these guys work.
U cannot expect to get paid if you do not work