The retired Munali Secondary School teachers who were last week evicted from government houses by council police have demanded for payment of their dues by the government.
The evicted teachers have also accused Lusaka Province Minister Bowman Lusambo of being behind the demolition of their structures leaving them in the cold.
The visibly angry retirees of whom some have continued to spend nights in the cold said Mr Lusambo is a ruthless and heartless leader who does not care about the plight of the poor.
They said they are ready to leave once paid their money as stipulated in the laws of Zambia.
“We are ready to vacate these premises, it’s not like we want to be here. All we are waiting for is our money”, they said.
Others talked to expressed disappointment that two weeks after being given the eviction letters, the council police appeared in drunken state midnight forcing them out of the houses.
They said they are agrieved because they are not there illegally as they are waiting for their dues which government has faiked to pay on time.
Recently, government issued an eviction notice to over 20 retirees living in teachers houses at Munali Secondary school.
The eviction notices also stated that the structures such as shops, boarding houses, chicken runs and garages within the premises should be demolished within a week.
The only thing that Lusambo knows is to demolish and kill. So barbaric chap. People struggle for years to build something, and someone goes behind them destroying.
In the same crime City there are kids sleeping in drainages, wish them could sleep in those houses these PF thugs destroyed.
The story is not adding up. Why destroying the houses when evicting them?
Kikiki!!! Lusaka Times stories rarely add-up you have to guess the spaces for yourself. Anyway what City council demolished were the illegal structures that were built by the tenants and some of them the retirees. These additions and illegal structures were also used as illegal boarding facilities for children. Purely illegal structures. Maybe the government should pay the retirees their dues and let them go. Munali is just one such school. There are other schools where such things are happening. Fraser Musonda – Deputy Lusaka PS was at Munali at one time and am sure he created some enemies there and its not time for payback.
Disaster!!!!!
Heartless, Govt should have paid them their dues, how do you evict people when you have not given what is due to them, how do expect them to start afresh where you want them to go
E.C.Lungu was very finished before he even became the occupant of the state house.
Chachine Nomba balefwaya balemeka kwati bakulile mundalama sha clean when we all know that he’s a crook
Legal action would help here. The affected teachers must meet and then designate the group leaders. The group leaders must approach LAZ or any legal practitioner to represent them in court. The issue of unpaid retirement packages is both legal and political. It calls for political will on the part of Government. At the same time, there is the human rights issue that needs to be dealt through legal means. The political rhetoric is very good but it can not pay dues to the retirees. There is need to build a robust revenue base for the country. To do that, it is necessary to create wealth and employment through economic diversification and industrial growth.
Sometimes its best to tell the whole truth. All these teachers were paid their dues long ago. However they came with a new demand 1. Sell them the houses they occupied as ‘sitting tenants’. They even quoted some outdated FTJ driven policy. When it was pointed out to them that the policy also stated ‘excluding institutional houses’ they changed their demands 2. Give us repatriation money as we have long spent it. When this was done, another demand came up 3. Compensate us for the extensions we made to the houses including ‘creating’ illegal boarding houses for ‘pupils’ or should we say ‘brothels’ for all and sundry….so really GRZ doesn’t owe them any money they had had better gather themselves count their losses and move on.
They say every dog has its day. The retirees had it coming for having ill motives. Current teachers have no accommodation due to selfishness of these retired teachers.
And they still could not find the owner of 48 houses, but they managed to find the retirees