Employees of Mzuzu City Council have downed their tools to push for a 25 percent salary increment after going three years without an increase amid rising cost of living.
The staff, through their trade union, yesterday sealed the council offices and said they will only resume work once their salaries are increased.
The union’s vice-chairperson Magodi Philip Tembo said the workers were initially denied a 17 percent salary increase approved by the government for the 2023/24 financial year.
“We were denied a salary increase of 17 percent which was approved by the previous government for the 2023/24 fiscal year. Due to the cost of living, we agreed that they should give us 10 percent,” he said.
Tembo said the council subsequently asked the workers to carry forward the agreed 10 percent and include it in the 2026 budget, with an understanding that the increment would rise to 25 percent.
One of the employees, a ticket seller at one of the council’s markets, said she joined the council in 2019 but has never received a salary increment.
She said the situation has made it difficult for workers to meet their daily needs, noting that the lowest-paid employees earn less than K150 000.
But the council’s public relations officer McDonald Gondwe said approving a 25 percent salary increase will be difficult due to the council’s budget constraints.
He said the council had to consider the sustainability of its budget and ensure that salary adjustments did not affect the delivery of essential services.
Mzuzu City Council is the economic hub of the Northern Region and the country’s third major city after Lilongwe and Blantyre. The other city is Zomba, the colonial capital.
