A Company contracted by Zesco to do works at its Lunzuwa hydroelectric power station in Mpulungu district has allegedly relocated to Angola leaving more than 60 ex-workers stranded.
Zesco awarded the initial contract to Bneec Zambia who in turn sub-contracted Transley Zambia to construct staff houses at Lunzuwa hydroelectric power station in Mpulungu District.
The contractor then recruited a group of 60 men from the district to work on the housing units but relocated to Angola after executing the contract without paying the labourers their last paycheques.
A representative of the group said they were engaged as casual workers by Transley Zambia to build staff houses at Lunzuwa where works to upgrade the 66Kv to a 330kv line have begun.
The affected workers have called on Government to help them get their dues which vary between KR2400 and KR1400 per worker.
The cadre of workers include bricklayers, carpenters and artisans.
Northern Province permanent secretary Hlobota Nkunika said he would comment at a later stage after getting details on the issue.
These are more jobs talked about by PF govt? Atase, they ca not even protect the Zambian people.
Its difficult to blame ZESCO on this one. The job was completed, so? The only thing is these laborers are Zambians, ZESCO being a public company means they own it. So in the end though there are no legal obligations on ZESCO, it still reflects badly in the eyes of the public.
ZESCO better pull up their socks on foreign contractors. By the way what happened to that investigation at Kariba north bank when the current MD was power station manager? He was accused of planning a heist of first grade copper from the turbines which was loaded in an ALSTOM container but apparently intercepted by security after a tip off from fellow managers. It looks that investigation died a natural death. Aagh! Zambia the real Africa!
This is what our government wants, they want foreigners to be the only ones employing Zambians on minimum wage and abandon them after getting the money. If a Zambian starts a company and make money, the government will report him to the Commonwealth, so cheap indeed.
And charge us so much tax and fees and regulations… And the forigners can evade tax as they want
Who is an ARTISAN? Whatever happened but leave the contractor alone, the money he is owing those villagers is so little compared to the contact sum such that when you do rounding off the figure is NEGLIGIBLE so please leave him alone.
WHAT ARE U TALKING ABOUT? IS NOT THE SAME WORKERS HE HAS ABANDONED WHO HELPED HIM TO COMPLETE THE JOB. LET HIM COME BACK AND PAY THEM. IF HE IS NOT CAREFUL ANGOLA WILL CANCEL HIS CONTRACT. OUR EMBASSY THERE CAN LODGE A COMPLAINT AGAINST HIS COMPANY.
Zesco did not engage this company but it was subcontracted by a company contracted by Zesco. Legally and morally Zesco has no take on this. However, its the duty of GVT t o protect its citizens and so the Min of labor and that of foreign service can do better in handling this case with the Angolan counter part.
We read about this same type of stories everyday. And like i have always insisted, we need a construction lien Act to solve all these type of problems.
The only way to solve this problem is to form a strong construction union like in South Africa, our unions have became weak and are not representing workers. If the workers were under a union, union lawyers would be suing on behalf of the workers. The government cannot be solving everything happening in the private sector, the private sector should solve their own problems and discourage their members in engaging in bad practices like non payment of wages to their employees. If this continues more regulations will be imposed on the private sector which will just make it more difficult and expensive to do business. Self-regulation is key in the private sector and government interference in labour issues might lead to nationalisation of certain industries and more bureaucracy.