National registration staff to down tools
About 4 500 temporary National Registration Bureau (NRB) staff are expected to down their tools starting from Tuesday August 15 2017 because of what they call low allowances and poor working conditions.
Since the onset of the exercise in May this year, the temporary officers have been pressing for upward adjustment to their allowances saying the daily allowance of K5 600 is far below the cost of living particularly to carter for their basic needs, communication and mobility in the field.
Spokesperson for the officers Rudolf Kachapila said even though they were promised the adjustment to about K10 000 a day, translating to about K250 000 per phase, they are still receiving the old amount.
Kachapila said this compelled them to petition their employers PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), National Registration Bureau (NRB) and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) “but up to now we have not heard from them.”
In the petition, the officers gave a seven-day ultimatum for the authorities to act on the matter and the ultimatum expires today. The exercise is now in the fourth phase.
However, NRB spokesperson Norman Fulatila dismissed the allegation that the temporary officers are getting the old pay.
According to Fulatila, allowances for the officers were increased with K55 000 per officer starting from the second phase which started in June.
Initially, the temporary officers were getting K120 000 at the end of each phase while their supervisors were getting K150 000, the money was increased to K175 000 and K205 000 respectively.
“After they presented their grievances towards the end of the first phase their allowances were increased by K55 000 across the board. However, at the beginning of each phase they get 40 percent of the money and eventually get the remaining 60 percent at the end of each phase,” explained Fulatila.
On the strike, Fulatila said as the major stakeholder they have not received any communication regarding the matter.
The government of Malawi is contributing 40 percent of the total budget for the exercise while the remaining 60 percent is from donors.
The basket fund for the project is being managed by UNDP and other project implementers while PWC was subcontracted to handle recruitment and welfare of temporary employees in the exercise which will be ran in five phases.
NRB targets to register nine million people by December 2017.
