British High Commissioner to Zambia James Thornton has backed the Patriotic Front (PF) government’s decision to maintain the wage freeze on the civil service in the 2015 financial year.
This is despite country’s trade unions warning of dire consequences that include countrywide mass demonstrations should government remain adamant on wage freeze.
In an interview with Qfm News, Mr. Thornton says his concern is the broader economic situation of Zambia.
Mr. Thornton says if government is to control fiscal deficits, one of the ways to do so is to restrict public spending.
The British envoy says this is why he thinks that by imposing a wage freeze on the civil service, the Zambian government is trying to cut down on deficits especially that the public service was recently awarded a huge pay increment.
One of the most self centre High Commisioner from Britain we ever had in Zambia,unless if it was issues of homesexual he could have advocated.
This Tory guy is misleading PF with his support for a wage freeze. Here in the UK, all civil servants are planning a major strike action to force the government to rescind its reckless decision.
Nurses and midwives protested last week, and now the police force about to be balloted in support of strike action.
Any way, Tory government on its way out because of its reckless policies which have inflicted a very high of living for those in donkey jobs. Its behind the polls at the moment and splinter group called UKIP has swayed many Tory supporters abandon the conservative party.
Just like the conservative government which sent that one to Zambia, PF is going to be a one term government.
British High Commissioner to Zambia James Thornton IS POSITIVELY, RIGHT ON WAGE FREEZE. THIS IS ONE EFFECTIVE WAY TO CONTROL INFLATION AND ECONOMIC DEFICITS. FOR ONCE CAN’T THERE BE UNION LEADERS WHO UNDERSTAND ECONOMICS AND HOW INFLATION IS TRIGGERED IN THE COUNTRY OR THE WORLD-OVER? THE CIVIL SERVANTS HAVE HAD HUGE WAGE INCREASES- THEY THINK IT WILL BE CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY?
That British envoy is a shameless imperialist. Does he even care whether civil servants gets what is due to them or not? The PF regime does not really care about the poor Zambians and so who cares anyway……..
Well said !! Glad this man has seen the bigger picture too. The wage freeze is what we need if we want to turn around our economy. Those chaps from the union have outlived their usefulness.It is about time they were replaced. Hikaumba and his cronies must go.
@soulosi
please you must an educated fella,,, with degrees!!, this guy Thornton is an oppressor,,,,, more than 50 percent of our relatives Zambians or africans live on less than a dollar day,,,and you want to oppresse the few who are trying to live above a dollar,,,,,,,this guy Thonton tells your relative in Zambia to eat sh.it and you praise him,,God, you `educated people` are blind!!!,,, worst of all of ebola is on the horizon, your people will even fell to buy panadol for headach
Jano, surely you live in fools paradise to dispute the man with a better understanding. Unions are the same who have failed to understand that they are complaining about deficit but want more money in the pockets and they want development at the same time. Well China is today second richest country through hard work and sacrifaces.
Who is this colonialist Thorntorn to be telling us what to do, let him and his Government concentrate on sorting out the mess they created through their invasion of Iraq with the Gringos by sorting out those murderous ISIS thugs.
The stance taken by the British govt of supporting the wage freeze should not surprise the labour leaders,because the same British govt at one time supported slave trade in Africa,they also supported colonialism and apartheid in south Africa,they also invaded Iraq with the hope of finding chemical weapons because their intelligence had full information that Iraq had such weapons.Were the British govt right in their judgement?Robert Mugabe is a terrorist and a dictator for grabbing land from the whites which he gave to the blacks.
Ambassador Thonton is being naive, Mr Thonton should be reminded what his British government under Cameron has just done to striking workers. Medical personnel that include nurses and midwifery have just began a national strike here which will continue in the next months to come because the British government has refused to give 1% increase pay rise. Ambassador Thonton need to remove a log in British government eye before taking a speck from PF government.
we dont need salary increase all we need is reduced cost of doing business why shud fuel be cheaper in zimbabwe? why DSTV be cheaper in Botswan? why tt be cheaper in congo DR? why shud mealmeal be expensive when our maize just rote?ZESCO and FAZ very expensive. responsible minister be like shamenda and kambwili
when the govt had their increment this man did not say anything now bcoz its poor cival servants he decides to to defend da govt on wage freeze is he normal i wonder ?Cant he c the way pipo are suffering? is he one of so called azungu o…sa to borror sam pipos’lunguage?
You goverment workers are suckers.I work for a company which has froze my salary for the past three years!
Mwana wamfwitii ***** envoy,when he talks he he moves his noses like a pig.
I conquer with Wisdom, we don’t need another increment, but simply devise mechanisms on how to reduce cost of doing business or better still enhance productivity (esp. amongst farming communities) in this country. If I may ask, how much is the lowest paid civil servant taking home each month? not less than 6 times what a lowest paid employee from private sector is getting.
If parliament mischievously increased emoluments for constitutional officer bearers this year, it was wrong and betrayal of trust on their part. Nonetheless, should we go on with another mistake of putting more money in a few people’s pockets (civil servants + their dependents constituting less than 3/14 of our total population) when majority of our people are wallowing in abject poverty?
The is envoy right, we the civil servants are not complaining and most of you are not civil servants. Please stop talking on our behalf. The so called union leaders are not there to help when we are fired because of striking so who is going to risk to lose a job and join you street adults. No ways we not going to fall for your so called cheap research and economical analysis. we are okay and getting a salary every eighteenth of the month. By the way let me go to the bank sure am the money has hit my account. More fan later
these white monkeys are a bunch of chicalas who stole our copper to build their country; evans mfula at evaduco reporting live from lusaka street chinyos
Zambians need to be realistic on issues like this one , civil servants just have had good increments in fact heft ones , these increments if not controlled can destroy economy of a nation ; besides such heft increment are not held of in developed countries , they only increase by a few pence per year , but Zambians want 500 kwacha oh sorry where to now ; my point is wage freeze is good for Zambias’ economy
To think earlier in the year MPs lobbied for higher pay!
I think Thornton should maintain a less Zambian political role and hike up his Diplomatic role and it’s requirement.
Currently the British gov’t is causing problems in our economy because of their ‘investors’ in our Mines. Perhaps Thornton could please be louder on Glencore and Vedanta. He might even loudly campaign on our behalf, in the British Parliament. He could easily compose and send acerbic Reports to the British gov’t demanding that they prevent Vedanta from trading in the British Stock Exchange.
Where he is meddling he could redirect that into more appropriate meddling.
With sadness I have to support the pay freze, … But only because PF has messed up by failing to collect a Revenue from the Mines…
With sadness I have to support the pay freze, … But only because PF has messed up by failing to collect Revenue from the Mines. AGAIN THE POOR PAY.
Ambassador Thornton, please advise the British Gov’t to attend to the failure of British Firms/Investors to pay Corporation Tax to Zambia. Zambia’s corporation tax is paid into British GDP as Income a Tax by Vedanta and Glencore.
There is a transfer of our wealth into your GDP. David Cameron stated a while on this issue, that he did not think it correct for poor countries to be denied corporate tax. If we can get our hands on what us due to us we can weather our current overspending gov’t. Our gov’t needed to address infrastructure which was set aside prior and during the period when our external debt was unpayable.