Five months after the Industrial Relations Court (IRC) ordered the reinstatement of 45 former Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services workers, the department is yet to act.
One of the lawyers for the 45, Joseph Kamkwasi said he has been talking to some senior government officials on the matter, but red tape was delaying the process.
He said: “Government red-tape is what is delaying their reinstatement, but the officials I have spoken to have been helpful. But if we are not careful, this is what will continue to happen where the government fires people anyhow.
“We need strong leadership because if someone has been employed during the regime of party A, they should not be removed anyhow by party B. We need to treat everyone as a Malawian, otherwise, these lawsuits are avoidable.”
The workers have since said they will file for contempt of court if government continues delaying to have them reinstated.
The 45, among others, were workers the directorate deployed in non-established positions between 2018 and 2019, initially under contracts of unspecified duration, but in January 2019, the directorate converted those arrangements into annual fixed-term contracts.
However, court documents show that in 2022, the directorate advertised established posts and recruited other people, without considering the workers who had been performing those duties, resulting in the affected workers suing for unfair dismissal.
In his ruling dated May 31 2026, IRC chairperson Austin Msowoya ordered the State to reinstate or re-engage the 45 “on full benefits” effective from December 2022 when their contracts expired.
It reads in part: “Regarding the nature of the claimants’ work, one may be tempted to quip, did respondents have such a huge need of work that the claimants were continuously employed on temporary contracts in non-established positions for a period spanning five years?
“Because on aggregate, applicants were employed throughout the five years without a break in between the contracts. Had it been that they were only employed when their services were required, on occasions where respondents had a backlog of work, perhaps there would have been gaps in between some or all of the contracts. There was none.”
In an interview yesterday, Road Traffic director general Christopher Madalitso Kuyera referred the matter to the Department of Human Resource Management and Development (DHRMD).
“Talk to the Department of Human Resources. They are responsible for all HR related issues,” he responded via WhatsApp.
But DHRMD spokesperson Ken Mtonga had not responded by press time.
