Paying public servants on 42nd day of month is gross negligence

Court Clerk: All rise! It is honourable justice Mbadwa presiding. You might be public servants of all manner, but we have a court decorum which we ask you to respect. The court is now in session.

Mbadwa: Counsel for the aggrieved public servants should come forward.  What matter, which could not wait for my observing the Lenten period, have you brought forth?

Counsel Ung’ono-ung’o no: My Lord, I want to first put this issue on record. I know this court encourages citizens to represent themselves in matters, but these public servants specifically asked me to represent them because they say the government they are working for is very vindictive.  In short, they feared that they would later be singled out for firing when the authorities start executing their trademark reprisals for exposing the inadequacies of this administration.

Mbadwa: Counsel, I think we are not here to hear how spiteful some overzealous hiring authorities can be. State your case and why you have sought the indulgence of this tribunal.

Ung’ono-ung’ono: My Lord, this is already half-way through this month, but the public servants have not yet been paid last month’s salary. Now,  my clients are wondering why the Minister of Finance and Secretary to Treasury and the Department of Human Resources  are not fulfilling the contractual agreement which my clients made to sign when they were being engaged?

My Lord, most of my clients are now staying under trees after being evicted after failing to pay monthly rentals because of the salary delay and you expect such people to perform at work? Where is the justice and the progress this government wants us to believe it espouses? This government has exposed some employees to the wrath of katapila as most of their property has been confiscated by loan sharks.

In fact, this government should just admit that it is broke. What more evidence would one need that they are broke? If they cannot pay my clients on time it means they do not have money.

We would like the Minister of Finance and his team to be jailed for gross negligence for failing to pay employees on time and for subjecting my clients to mental torture and public humiliation at the hands of Katapila dons. We want also the court to jail them for abuse of office.

Mbadwa: The people you want jailed do not seem to care and that is why they did not attend this hearing. But wheels of justice cannot be stopped by such conduct. I will make my judgement. This court has learnt that the delay in salaries was caused by a single error after an officer was over-deducted on his pay for a loan he took.

But why should people suffer because a system could not allow processing of salaries?

An employer has a contractual obligation of paying the employee at the agreed time.  Two weeks at the Mikuyu Prison will sober them up. May their property be sold to pay public servants whose property was confiscated through usury. Case closed. Thanks.