The Zambia National Pensioners Association (ZANAPA) has
appealed to Members of Parliament to ensure government’s internal debt for pensioners
is reduced before tackling he issue of salary increments for constitutional office holders.
ZANAPA Secretary for Livingstone and Kazungula District, Patrick Namakando said any increment
for cabinet and other high ranking government officers would further increase the financial
disparity between pensioners and those in government leadership.
Mr. Namakando told ZANIS in Livingstone Thursday that government owed pensioners a lot of money
through the Pensions Board adding that any increment yet to be awarded to cabinet would
have devastating effects on pensioners.
He said it was unfair for pensioners to receive percentage increments that only translated to
K12, 500 when constitutional office holders were contemplating increments involving millions of
kwacha for each individual.
But Vice President Rupiah Banda has said there is no need for sectors of society to
start debating on the salary increments when government had not even announced the
new emoluments  for constitutional office holders, ministers and their deputies.
Meanwhile, the Civil Society in the country has called on government to immediately withdraw the proposed salary increments for Cabinet and other constitutional office bearers.
Civil Society for Poverty Reduction Executive Director Mulima Akapelwa said Vice President Rupiah Banda should lead cabinet in withdrawing the proposed increment before it is taken to Parliament.
Ms. Akapelwa, who issued the statement on behalf of other civil society organisations at a press briefing in Lusaka today, said the proposed increment negates the principle of transparency and accountability as it clearly indicates cabinet’s misplacement of priorities.
She wondered where government would find the money to effect the increment as it was not budgeted for.
She said if government intends to go ahead with the proposal, the same principle should apply to all government workers including University of Zambia Lecturers and students.
And Caritas Zambia Executive Director Sam Mulafulafu wondered why the Ministry of Finance and National Planning has remained mute on the proposed increment.
Mr. Mulafulafu said Finance Minister Ng’andu Magande should explain to the nation how government intends to finance the proposed increments.
Civil Society organisations represented at the briefing included Transparency International Zambia, Women for Change, Non Governmental Coordinating Council and Civil Society for poverty reduction among others.
ZANIS/BK/AM/ENDS
ZANIS/Ends/AMM/MM
Pensioners have to be paid ASAP !! the cabinet ministers and other nyandules can get theirs later!Pensioners have already worked for that money!!Ka Mulongoti iwe omuyanga…why are you justifying your selfishness?pay the pensioners and other civil servants,UNZA is also another…we see you at UNZA,are you still studying law?you have to be failed chap!
This leadership vacuum speaks volumes.reminder of the honking to detest the greediness of rb,the parrot and ministers is 2morrow from 06 hours to 07 hours.
settle your debts first you chaps
#2 will the honking be organised i mean say from point a to point b or it will just be spontaneus how will people know what is going on?
THE DESERVE THE RAISE!!
I find this issue about the increase in ministers and senior government salaries rather too cliché. Is there thing wrong, I don’t think so! Do these people deserve it, I think they do.
Running a country is not just about patriotism. There is a lot more that is involved than basing decisions on emotion. A businessman will not work very hard for this business because it is the right thing to do. He will do so because he wants the bottom-line to be healthy and support the continued growth of his business. So why do you expect a politician to run the country because is the right thing to do. That this will show he loves for the country. Have you seen the kind of decisio
Our pensioners are lowly paid, We have pensioners that earn K30,000 per month, There are inconsistents in the payment system, a Government Director who retired e.g 1980 will get
K 30,000 while a person who retired in 2003 under the same salary scale will get K 300,000. It should therefore logical to harmonize the pension system. Note that the pension support is an obligation by government. K30,000 could have been worth K300,000 in todays money some 15 years ago. Salaries should not remain static, Inflation should be considered in Pensioner’s salaries. Should KK earn less money than FTJ because of inflation.
Yes let pensioners get their money first than these chaps who are already living in opulence!
#2 VIVA HONKING!!! It helped form the Oasis forum and denied chiluba a third term!
That this will show he loves for the country. Have you seen the kind of decisions love struck people make…
There has been a lot of talk about high levels of poverty in the country and how the levels doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller. What do expect if the people making the decisions about eradicating poverty are also poverty stricken? Their decisions are based on what they know and what they know is that they are poverty stricken and the want to get out of poverty. Their ambitions are not big. There are as mostly small and misguided. The easily get intimidated by big ideas because most of the time these ideas are beyond them and as such they cannot think beyond their level of poverty.
What will happen if a chief executive is paid peanuts? His ideas will be as grand as peanuts. His personal problems will take centre stage and he will not be bothered by company issues. Other well paid executives will always intimidate him and these ‘hawks’ will always take advantage of him and he will always come out with raw deals.
Why is everyone morning about senior government official giving themselves hefty pecks? Try and weigh what you expect of them. Do you want them to make small decisions or big decisions? Do you want them to always put their personal problems first? Do want them to make short term decisions or do you want them to make long term plans that those that come after t
Do want them to make short term decisions or do you want them to make long term plans that those that come after them will continue working on rather than all starting from the scratch.
Let the minister and senior government get decent salaries and allowances. The role we have to pay as citizens is to make the work for the money and help us get out of our poverty.
I think the deserve it. So people stop mourning at concentrate on making yourselves better people. Because the majority of us are poverty stricken our chain of thought seem to be misguided and such we tend to see things are there are.
It makes sad reading indeed.from my simple understanding.pension isnt free money but what someone has already worked for.if money to pay these suffering retirees isnt there when in fact was budgeted for,where shall the proposed increment difference come from especially that magande never mentioned it in his budget presentation early this year?its only humane that they are given what is owed them them before it loses value as defined by the NPV(NET PRESENT VALUE)phenomenon.ZANAPA needs to be supported because they are fighting for everyone scheduled to retire one day in future.however,lets invest so we dont suffer when we retire as we wait for such monies.
#5,9,10,11 The position of minister is purely by appointment and not by aspiration. The underlying principle in discharging this function is service & not self gratification. If u had a slight idea of the conditions of service in govt, then u wud keep quiet & not cause offence to lowly paid civil servants & pensioners who look forward to a better day. You wud champion their cause & not of politicians that add little value to the system. In fact, the post of Deputy Minister is merely for rewarding party cadres and must be scrapped. Look at the current occupants and u will agree that few of them are at par with CEOs in the private sector that they wish to equate themselves with.
As much as I agree with Martin C Kambwiri in his explainations I would like to differ with him in principal due to the selfishness exhibited by our so called leaders.There is no justification on earth for day light robbers to deserve a high increament in their wages.If take into consideration what these Popwes are currently earning and their persion money,its quite handsome compared to what is given UNZA LECTURES AND UTH DOCTORS who have working under undue conditions.While these popwes enjoy our hard earned kwachas free of tax and want more.Remember what Nakatindi Wina in 1993, telling one politician that 2yrs b4 1991 elections they were renting servant qtrs but now they own big mansions in
continued from 14.Kabulonga and those that were walking the streets of Cairo were driving expensive vehicles.These are the same politicians want to reap where they did not sow.If these guys love thier ZED and work hard for Zedians why dont they increase the salaries of Civil Servants above the poverty datum line? Then after that thier increament can be justified.So ABASH to unjustified salary increament for lazy popwes.The rule of the game is simple.If you as a minister you feel the Gvtmnt is not paying you well resign and join the private sector were you can be paid better.Mind you immediately you resign there a million Zedians who will perform much much better than you at the amount you
I find it hard to disagree with #13 over these Deputy Ministaz positions and the value endowed therein.lets learn to associate quality to where its centred.for me,the civil service can never fail to deliver to the satisfaction of everybody if at all the very civil servants driving the flow of everything are corectly taken care of in the right manner as presupposedly needed.we have a bunch of both ministaz and their Deputiz who cant even read a script.what critical decisions can they make without the imput of neglected civil servants?if one can spend the whole year without talking in parliament how & where do they become critical apart from chorusing hear”hear?not these politicians pls….
@ Martin C Kabwiri, are you serious?!
I was about to say the say!!!martin for once be serious!!!
The point in short you cannot have a society were public workers earn more than those in private sectors. This clearly does not make sense in terms of production world over USA or UK their is never a situation were those in office are earning more than those in the corporate world. The point is at ZMK32 per month there are a few corp that can made effectively to pay such a basic plus other allowances, hence the increases become unjustifed regardless of big decisions to be made and at what expense when the same service can be procured at a much less cost!!!
honetly where are oppostision leaers when you need them?pressure groups,unza students please help us out here.VIVA needs to start now,you ministers are being selfish.you remove rural hardship allowance from the teachers and you award yourselves hefty packages i cannot believe what am hearing.i am so disaapointed with everyone in gov.ruling pary and opposition you are all the same.thats why Jehova’s witnees do not vote,no point you are the same.
….ba govt mule ishamika….bembas say mayo mpapa naine nkakupapa…the pensioners have served zambias economy, provided revenue in taxes and now what do they have…they are thrown out….give the elderly their money……you even eat money for the deceased..careful
infact you are contributing to poverty increases while advocating for poverty reduction…i fail to trust you.if not for the law i would eat the tax
Kanshi ba Zambia Chabashani pakanwa fye apo twatampila ukulanda ilyashi limo na limo.
Start HONKING AT 5 TO 6 PM everyday all you need to do is pass word NO INCREAMENTS FOR MINISTERS to your friends, word of mouth, text etc, i see 5 people start and the rest is history, word spreads like wild fire to all the main areas.
Your money will be looted before you do anything about it. It will be too late then. Act now. No Third term worked, so can this. If you can spend time to pray, pray for Lpm, surely you can take time to honk, honk for your tax money.Go Zambia Go.
I am glad that civic minded individuals and organizations are advocating and stepping up to have this greedy motive rejected. I hope people will join hands and say NO to this unjust act? I hope the people of Zambia will take it to the streets once their plight is ignored…wake up people it time to stop the plunder of our resources.
One and only we don’t need the opposition or UNZA students to protect? YOU also can mobilize enough civic minded people to demostrate? YOU are the agent of change…..GO Zambia GO…let us show them that the will of people should be respected. The people of Zambia are the ultimate authority/rulers of the nation…..opposition leaders are also fortune seekers?
#5 is sick.pliz all normal people avoid answering back sick people.
mwebena zambia,mulikwi????ba oasis forum,ba church,civic organisations…the whole lot of you….was it only third term u were fighting????surely should we continue like this???? Martin…katwishi nga niwe carder nangu tawakwata mano…..ukaba pensioner one day…ngaukafikako….ichimutwe
It’s only logical, people have died of depression waiting for their lousy pensions, pls pay them ASAP b4 u even think of awarding your greedy selves additional perks! With our historically high rate of inflation, kwacha pensions for most of our civil servants are meaningless as it is. To delay payment by yrs after a person has retired is pure evil at best…!
One of the reasons Zambia remains poor is the injustice showered upon retirees. The GRZ has been deliberately robbing people who have faithfully served this country. The Pensioners have no voice. Only God hears their pleas and we as a nation remain cursed.
Those thieves working at Ministry of Finance and at pension funds know very well what they have been doing. They have been stealing money knowing very well that a retiree has no voice. The country remains cursed.
As someone has said before, many have died out of depression because inspite of serving for over 30 years, their benefits cant buy them the smallest house or even pay rent for more six months. The country remains cursed.
Yet in the midst of this injustice, the rich commend themselves to higher wages. This brood of vipers indeed.
Should anyone be surprised that we remain poor and backward as a nation I ask when right before our eyes the labourer is robbed of his dues.
When all the best of him has been spent faithfully serving the nation for over 30 years and yet a meagre pentance they call his benefit is slapped on him.
Surely the nation remains cursed.
to the so called cabinet offices .why do you pretend to be servants of people when all you think of is to make your selves reach and have big tamies you dont consinder pipo who have been crying over the years. ..put your selfs in the shoes of a poor retaired teacher from chipulukusu who keeps caming to the city to firght for is cash and spends is nits in the cold.y cant you have a heart pay them b4 you pay your selfves. it was so shamful to see the all minister of education prasing himself that teachers are now geting a 200 as housing allowence . shame on you.do unto others as you wnt them to do unto you…. let the increament b across the bord,.. goverment pay your deals….shalitukalipa
martin be realistc bet you are one of the selfish benefisheris.. y cant the goverment think of the poor teacher ,police officer nurcers and them who aresaving the people day in day out… think twice b 4 you make a useless statment… save with a heart reward acordingly…. pay civil servants well
why should these people get more money when a number of people in zambia live on a dollar per/day?
I agree with No 12 it is a very sad state of affairs. I would like to know on what grounds these proposed salary increments can be justified? It’s strange that in a weak economy such as ours holders of high positions in publc office should have more money while in developed nations their counterparts have deliberately moderate incomes.
I agree with No 12 it is a very sad state of affairs. I would like to know on what grounds these proposed salary increments can be justified? It’s strange that in a weak economy such as ours holders of high positions in publc office should have more money while in developed nations their counterparts have deliberately moderate incomes.
Good idea, honk everyday after 5 as u drive back home. As we do people will know and they will join in. Dont worry about the police they will also join in they are equally affected. For no 3rd term, we did it every friday but we dont have that time now so we will do it everyday untill they announce th withdrw.
thanks #38
#6 you have a point. Time value of money should vbe taken into consideration. K30 000 ten years ago is not the same as K30 000 today. Why should the gZovernmnt exploit its own servants , i.e, civil servants.Its just inhuman!!
My understanding of being a service to the people is to look into their affairs critically. However, given the understanding that our so called constitutional office holders have or are trying to give themselves hefty salary increments really makes sad reading. Ladies and gentlemen, just have a critical look at the pensioners and see wether today they are able to afford three meals.
Constitutional office holders, remember today is them and tomorrow could be you. Simply give them their dues, after all, they worked for whatever. DO NOT BE SELFISH. Be a service to people and not a deservice
Levy, where are you? We miss you out here , in your absence the people we entrusted with looking after the interests of the country have cunningly started to plunder the resources you have so painstakingly been trying to preserve for the betterment of our people by awarding themselves huge increments. Fellow Zambians, since lpm is not here to protect us, let us do it ourselves, this cannot be left to come to pass without resistancy from all of us. Zambia Railways workers who were laid off ten year ago are still waiting for their benefits, is this not a SHAME?