Graduate police officers push for 2017 arrears
Government is yet to pay 52 police graduate officers their salary arrears from 2017 despite a court judgement of February 2022 which ordered the Attorney General (AG) and Malawi Police Service to do so.
High Court of Malawi Judge Kenyatta Nyirenda also ordered the service to promote the 52 graduate police officers, who dragged the defendant to court over salary and promotion disparities based on a 2017 functional review.
In a telephone interview on Tuesday, lawyer for the officers Gift Nankhuni confirmed that his clients were promoted as ordered by the court but they have not been paid their arrears.
Said Nankhuni: “The issue of arrears has not been resolved. We are still waiting for the defendant. We are still negotiating and we are hoping to take the matter to the registrar soon.”
The court had ordered that the assistant registrar should assess the salary arrears to be paid to the claimants within 21 days from February 22, 2022, the date the judgement was pronounced.
Spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice Frank Namangale asked for more time before commenting on what is causing the delays.
But deputy director of civil litigation in the AG office Neverson Chisiza in a letter addressed to the assistant registrar dated August 23 2023, requested the matter to be adjourned for 14 days to allow both parties to finalise the process of responding to some of the issues raised by the claimants.
Reads the letter: “It is the intention of the parties that after the defendants have responded to the issues raised by the claimants, parties would convene a meeting to isolate and attempt to reconcile some issues that form the basis of the claims herein.”
The claimants are demanding salary arrears at the rate of K57 885 per month as well as legal fees.
One of the affected officers Chitenthe Kachali told Weekend Nation in an interview on Wednesday that the group feels let down by their employer who he claims is behind the delays.
Said Kachali: “Our main concern now is that the delays will affect the value of the money we are expected to receive, especially with the devaluations. We know that some of our seniors are behind these delays just to frustrate us, but police ought to have been exemplary in complying with court orders.”
Several officers were promoted following a 2017 police functional and structural review. The promoted officers also had their grades changed but 52 officers, who had self-upgraded to degree level while in the service, were left-out leading to a court battle.
In his 10-page judgement, Nyirenda faulted MPS for not considering the 52 graduates.
He ordered MPS to promote the officers from Grades I and H to G and F, respectively, within 30 days from February 8 2022.
In May last year, the AG filed in the court seeking the stay of the order but his prayer was declined.
In December last year about 63 police officers also sued the Malawi Police Service through the AG over delays to promote them after successfully completing their self-upgrading studies.
In a sworn statement in support of the application to have the matter decided on a point of law, Yohane Lubaini and 62 others argued that they upgraded themselves to achieve the MPS’ goals for effective policing after getting an approval to pursue higher education for quality delivery of service.
The claimants also argued that after graduating between 2018 and 2021, they were expecting to be promoted and that their grades would change to match with their academic qualifications, which did not happen.
They further claim that they presented their grievances to former Inspector General (IG) of Police George Kainja in the presence of director of Human Resources Management and Development and the Service Administration Officer in 2020 where the IG promised to consider them.
