Acting Labour Minister Chishimba Kambwili has directed management at the state owned Times of Zambia to pay workers their three months salary arrears within two weeks.
Mr Kambwili who is also Sports and Youth Minister said it is totally unacceptable for a Government institution like the Times of Zambia to fail to pay its workers.
He told a media briefing that management at the Times of Zambia must find money to pay the workers within 14 days.
“I hereby issue a 14 day ulti8matum for management to source for funds to clear the three months salary arrears. I don’t care how they do it, all I want to see is that the Journalists at the Times are paid,” Mr Kambwili said.
Mr Kambwili added that failing to pay workers at a Government institution is highly embarrassing.
“You know my stance about labour issues and I don’t want to be party to a group that fails to pay its workers, this is unacceptable and embarrassing. I want the M.D and the HR Director to find money within 14 days to pay the workers.”
He said Government will not allow industrial unrest at Government institutions arising from failure to pay workers on time.
Mr Kambwili also issued a one month ultimatum to Lusaka City Council and other councils to pay the workers their salaries.
“I find it strange that a council like Mpulungu can pay workers on time and big councils like Lusaka City Council and Chipata Municipal Council are failing to pay their workers on time,” he said.
Unionised workers at the Times of Zambia have gone on a work stoppage after management failed to pay their salaries for three months.
Who is he? Everyone is issueing threats in people’s faults.
Has anybody done the cartoon of Useless, Fat, Vipuba Ministers yet?
Is this the paper he used to congratulate himself on the fake degree he got from kopala/jerabo university? Had he paid advertising fees surely this problem of thin resources would not be there. Pitful !!!
Am glad kalu has agreed he got the money and it was put to good use.like paying for his lavish wedding in SA.pitful !!!
Why not tell your sick boss to pay them…..
@Gen and @Saulosi
If this saga of non payment of salaries by the government institutions is enough to convince you guys that PF is rotten right from the top all the way to bottom, then I give up on you two.
Kambwili is now reacting after hearing that HH issued a message of solidarity with the government workers who have not been paid their salaries for three months.
Folks its better to call a spade a spade. In this case Times of Zambia is broke because no one is buying the cheap government propaganda being sold in their papers. To make matters worse, the advent of smart phones which enables readers source the news from online publications has also dealt the paper a huge blow. The solution to this problem is to pay the workers their arrears and lay them off if the government is…
To be honest the problem of News media struggling financially is not only haunting the Times of Zambia alone. Many news publications the world over are facing a stiff competition to sell their hard copy news from the online free and cheap publications because of the advent of smart phones. Some are seriously thinking of ditching hard copies altogether to concentrate on online cheap publications .
For Times of Zambia to survive it needs to innovate and find new ways of generating income instead of relying on the government. The whole organisation is not financially viable in its current form as their main customers are the government institutions which get free copies.
Sad that salaries are not being paid on time. Next this trend will affect the nurses, doctors , police, soldiers…
lets suport a good thing when it is proposed.Kambwili is right and we need to agree with him.These workers have to be paid
LT ….. Wrong `headline“,,,, it should read; kambwili gives Sata 14days to pay times of zambia employees
PF a party with excited MPs and ministers issuing statements like it is getting out of fashion. What explains his interference with the local government ministry? The only explanation may be that he has realized leadership gap and his is filling the gap the best way he knows how, issuing kaponya style of threats.
Where is Fackson Shamenda, the Labour Minister?
you mean ****son shamenda???
Spot on brother man! Where is Shamenda the labor minister? Anyways maybe he is trying to reduce on his weight. Lol
He is gallivanting in Europe making money like all of them ministers do under the pretext of official duty. Poor Zambia.
Where is their union leaders? What are they saying? These matters should be resolved before the likes of farting fat-boy Kambwili get wind of them.
Who does Kambwili think he is fooling? His workers go without pay for months on end at his kantemba bar at the roan mine mess and he is here trying to play holier than thou.
Elo lwanya nomba.
@mpangula mputyu. Its been long since I saw you.welcome back.
How do you appoint this as acting labour minister. We know his arrogance and big headedness. Times of Zambia is government institution why is he giving management to ultimatimum. They should properly fund the institution not giving threats.
It is easier to issue threats and look like one cares but a bit difficult for the likes of Kambwili to take some time and think things through. Has it occured to Kambwili that Times of Zambia isn’t breaking even from revenues from its operations because as a government entity there journalistic skills do not flourish given they news content does not meet the readerships expectations and as such no sane person buys the paper as its a government vuvuzele.
Until Kambwili reconciles himself with this fact, Times of Zambia will never be a viable and profitable entity. It will always depend on government hand outs. Bottom line, its the government that will bail this institution out. Either shut it down or keep quite and let government use tax payers money to pay the over due salaries.
The big question is , where is Hon. Shamenda? Has he been dropped or moved to another ministry or what?
you don’t see to be upto date with current affairs eh?daddy is in switzerland enjoying tax payers money under the vguise of attending an ILO conference.thats why mr arrogant chimbwili is acting albeit being a bad actor
Cheap politicking at its best. These are sensitive issues which should not be discussed in the media without identifying the source of the problem. This is typical of this regime. Tomorrow someone else will issue a contrary statement.
It is a good directive but Honorable Kambwili you should know that these are the consequences of employing cadres and tribesmen in senior positions. They can not tick and as such employees are now going for three months without pay. Shame. Your ultimatum is for two wks. Hopefully Shamenda will still be out by then otherwise we shall see contradictory statements again. Please learn to employ people based on professionalism and not based on caderism/tribalism. You will make the rest of the country suffer as we are seeing now.
Talk about monkeying in politics!! He wonders why bigger councils are failing compared with smaller ones, IT IS PRETTY OBVIOUS THEY HAVE BIGGER COMMITMENTS & THUS THEIR FINANCES ARE STRETCHED – Typical CNP!!!!!!!
He is the same dander head who said not all Zambians drive so it is okay to remove fuel subsidies
In what capacity?
Hmmmmmm….. a 14 day ultimatum? Sure, boss. How long are you acting?
mwebana bachila nishi mulelanda kuli acting labour minister tamwakatepo ichalo ifiba Tonga
How can a minister threaten an entity wholly owned by the executive branch? A household divided by itself cannot stand. May the downfall come sooner than 2016 mwe!
Why would anyone in his right mind hang around a company that’s broke? Three months without money and you are still reporting for work? It’s not as if these journalists are married to their employer until death do them apart.
I have never known of any spouse that sticks to their partner when they
are broke and without income!
Elo takwaba ati mwaume, ba tampa ukulisha kumbi bwangu bwangu …
no Kambwili, they have to pay immediately and then step down voluntarily! If not, cut from your mid-term gratuities…
Iwe Kambwili,what wil those Gvt workers feed on in the next one to two weeks,don’t you think they wil survive thru corrupt means and even prostitution to beat hunger
What have they been feeding on the past 3 months??? This is what makes Zambia a classic case of a wimpy society. So now that the acting Minister of Labor is issuing ultimatums for payment it is a bad thing? I thought we would be advocating for the management to actually wisen up and look at their balance sheets and see where they can actually accommodate this sad state of affairs’ resolution. A salary is paid for services rendered – it is unacceptable that after services are rendered you continue to wager the bets with an already weak worker.
14 days?
They should be given at least 90!
#Bufi
THE CORRECT HEADLINE SHOULD HAVE BEEN:
Kambwili gives shamenda 14 days ultimatum .
THE PRESIDENTIAL LABOUR DAY MASSAGE IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT THE GOVT IS DOING TO ITS EMPLOYEES.
You’re a lying liar each time you open your mouth, the government has to fund them, and people are no longer buying Times nor Post because of lies. Please change, make a game plan,
Thanks go to HH and ZWD for exposing this.
everyone is stepping on others toes…how is the Pf government running kanshi?
It will interesting to see what Kambwili will do if after 14 days there is still no money to pay the Times of Zambia salary arrears. I doubt if he has even has had a discussion with the Times management, typical of him to shoot first then aim!
Kambwili is mouthing off as if he did not know all along that Times of Zambia have not been paid salaries for 3 months. He is pursuing a populist agenda to out smart Kabimba in the bid for PF presidency.
You mean they have finished the Eurobond ALREADY????
OK, maybe Satas private hospital in State House cost 600 million.
So Mr DISASTER HIPPO, you better quickly tell Satas uncle Chikwanda to hurry up and get some more KALOBA, otherwise you will be looking even more F00LISH than you do now!
The answer here is simply privatize the Times of Zambia and the Daily Mail – capwa. Government has failed to run these institutions and as many have said before me, the sales of this govt Vuvuzela newspapers are too low to foot their running costs. They depend on govt grants…!
So private the Times and Daily mail and remain with a weekly production of ZANIS to do the Vuvuzela business at government cost.
Kambwili is forgetting that he is part of the reason why Government institutions like Times of Zambia are unable to pay staff.
Kambwili and fellow fools have haze polarised the government press. Times and Daily mail and Past newspapers don’t sell. Where in hell does he expect them to get the money when heaps of copies remain unsold at the end of the day because of stupid content.
According to PF philosophy (belief of deception) Kambwili Chishimba is a man of action who resolves issues without delay. Since PF cadres running Times of Zambia have bought into PF philosophy of ‘Donchi Kubeba’, they purposely never paid 3 months salaries of its workers as a donchi kubeba. Kambwili as usual wants to prove as a man of action believes Times of Zambia has money to pay salaries for its workers. He too is singing a mantra of ‘Donchi Kubeba’. That is how truth catches up with fools.
Truth catches up with dishonest people under self delusions.
This is a classical catch 22 situation. The Times of Zambia has always been broke, but with the advent of PF and their penchant for lies, the financial situation at the newspaper company has become more desperate. The more lies they spin, the more people shun the paper. Kambwili, do you think Times management are deliberately with holding salaries from their own workers? Do a research and you will find that management have been stretching for a long time and have now reached the elastic limit. Short of GRZ bail out, the poor souls cant do anything anymore. The horse has been flogged and is now lying on the floor panting, waiting for death. You still want to flog? Consult the incumbent first before going off on a tangent.
It is interesting how a minister who recently had a spat with the other (over labour matters at Luanshya Copper Mine) has been assigned to act in the other’s portfolio… Ba Shamenda bakasanga Kambwili nafikumbaula! Man of action at work!
What a Minister. How can he say i don’t care how they do it but they must pay the workers. I bet he goes to his wife demanding nshima and he does not care how she manages…his looks tell it all. And please do a bit of press ups and frog jumps because you need to be a role model if want to be Minister of sport and nshima cut down.
My grand son Kamwili, you did not have to go to the media to express your concern. That sounded like you merely were showing off. While you had the chance of acting, you should have checked if there was any money for wages in that operation. I suspect that this could be the reason why the accountant responsible would not take action as there was no money in the bank. What do you think about this?
I would have preferred thew following headline:
“Kambwili threatens to resign and then Kill himself if ToZ does not pay workers in 14 Days”.
Deadlines that have no no sanction or threat of sanction are meaningless
This is what happens when u employ relatives, remember Kambwili u have employed your nephew in your ministry as a driver who does not fear anyone and boasts that he is untouchable. Kanshi mwebantu where is the anti-corruption or are they also afraid of kambwili because the case of obtaining a fake degree has died a natural death. Is this what we voted for?