APM says no to bigger pay hikes
President Peter Mutharika has warned that his government will deal with his political detractors within and outside Malawi who are allegedly fuelling the current spate of strikes for higher salaries.
The President has since declared that the huge and haphazard salary demands by the strikers will not be granted.
The warning was part of his year-end State-of-the-Nation feed from Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe that was beamed on radio and television stations on Saturday night.
The address came in the face of expressed fury and criticism by some politicians, political commentators, civil servants and ordinary Malawians over Mutharika’s silence at a time when they wished to hear and see him guiding the nation on how to resolve a number of socio-economic challenges dogging Malawians.
In the past month, Malawi has been increasingly paralysed by a spate of strikes —whereby workers are demanding higher pay—in the civil service, the Judiciary and several other key public service delivery institutions, including the crime-busting Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
In his speech Mutharika stressed that ill-meaning politicians in Malawi and outside the country were fuelling the on-going strikes. Although he referred to the allegation on at least two occasions during his speech, he did not mention names.
The President said his government is bent on harmonising salaries between the civil service and other public institutions, which had enjoyed higher salaries. n
“Kodi Achawa m’kulamulira dziko?” this is the question my grandmother asked me soon after the 1994 general election results were released. I did not agree with her views at the time and I still don’t to date, however looking back at the mess that the Muluzi administration created in our country I begin to understand what she exactly meant.
I am not a supporter of the DPP party but this president has all my backing on this harmonisation exercise. It does not make sense to me that people on the same grade in govt should be paid differently to the extent that some are getting a million kwacha more than their counterparts in other govt branches, that’s ridiculous if not insane.
Please, Mr President clear this mess once and for all, we now know that those people striking in the judiciary, parliament, and ACB are doing so because of greed, they think their job is more important than anybody else’s and that the deserve the higher perk.
Don’t get me wrong people, I understand that everyone in govt want a pay hike to mitigate the sky rocketing inflation, but I think we as Malawians need to be realistic. What is our GDP? How much money does our govt have? 65% of our population live in villages with less to contribute to our govt confers, so where do we think the obscene amounts of pay hikes we are demanding will come from? To make matters worse, donors have also deserted us.
Now as I understand it, this govt is looking at priorities which I totally agree with; first let us do the harmonisation exercise then meaningful salary hikes latter on, is that rocket science to understand?