Mw High Commission in labour dispute

It now pours for the country’s Foreign Ministry with more challenges facing the embassies, the latest being three former Malawi’s High Commission workers in South Africa who have taken government to task over breach of contract.

The three claim unpaid salary increment arrears and lack of transparency in calculating terminal and gratuity benefits.

Their predicament comes on the heels of nine Unites States-based diplomats who on January 14 2022 obtained an injunction restraining the government from effecting their recall.

The development also follows delayed deployment of over 80 diplomats appointed by the Tonse Alliance administration due to funding challenges.

Nation on Sunday has extracted letters the three workers have been exchanging with the High Commission from last year over the matter.

The trio, Queen Nyirenda, Flossy Mpaso and Maureen Tonga, worked for 11 years as housekeepers at apartments managed by the Malawi Consulate in Johannesburg which is under Pretoria-based Malawi High Commission. Interestingly, they worked without being offered any contracts from 2015.

The apartments, located in the suburbs of Sunninghill, Woodmead and Bryanston, host Malawians who travel to South Africa for medical treatment.

The ex-workers were also periodically assigned as auxiliary staff in the Immigration, assets management and health sections at the consulate, the documents show.

The trio was fired in August last year soon after the High Commission had asked them to sign backdated three-year contracts with the first one running from 2015 to 2018, the second from 2018 to 2021 and the third one which was supposed to run from 2021 to 2024.

However, the High Commission allegedly broke the three-year arrangement and said the third contract will be for eight months only which is the period they had already worked after their contracts expired in March last year.

The former workers are also challenging this, demanding uniformity in the duration so that their terminal benefits should be calculated based on three years. They suspect the High Commission made the move to reduce the contract to eight months to avoid paying hefty compensation.

In a letter, the three jointly demanded answers as to how the commission calculated the gratuity and terminal benefits from which each pocketed R51 830 (about K2.7 million).

“We hereby demand for clarification as hereunder: what legal criteria did the Malawi Consulate General invoke to arrive at the package of R51 830.86 paid to each one of us after working under the Ministry of Health for 11 years?

“Why has the Malawi Consulate General not yet paid our overtime allowances and salary increment arrears for the past four years? Grounds for terminating our March 2021-February 2024 contract [breach of contract],” reads the letter to the High Commission dated February 3 2022.

In it, the former workers warn that “shall be left with no option but to institute legal remedies” if they do not get “genuine clarifications”.

In response to their letter, High Commissioner Stella Chiripo Ndau said she would refer their matter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Malawi.

In a letter which we have seen dated February 7 2022, she wrote: “Understanding that your employment was between the Government of Malawi and yourself and not the Malawi Consulate General and also recognising that the issues that you have raised are principally legal in nature rather than factual…

“…. I have formed a view that your letter, although addressed to me as High Commissioner, be forwarded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their kind perusal.”

When asked about the issue, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson John Kabaghe said: “The ministry is aware and is considering the matter internally.”

When terminating their contracts through a letter dated August 5 2021, the Malawi Consulate General cited exigencies of service (emerging circumstances) as the reason without specifying.

Meanwhile, labour specialist Richard Tchereko has said the government should have explained clearly how much was gratuity at the end of each contract, how it was calculated and provide the total amount.

He said, based on that, the ex-workers were right to press for that information.

Tchereko also faulted the government for failing to award the workers the contracts accordingly between 2015 and 2018.

He said: “Backdating contracts is not illegal under the labour laws. However, government, with a fully-fledged department that is responsible for handling human resources issues, was supposed to handle the contractual issues better.”

Meanwhile, the Malawi Consulate General has released a vacancy for housekeeper on its website www.malawiconsulate.co.za. The listed duties include “maintaining register of patients and their guardians, washing and ironing linen and other clothing materials, preparing and submitting weekly house requirements.”