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Wage Freeze killing the worker-UPND

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Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda delivering the 2015 budget
Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda delivering the 2015 budget

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OFFICIAL STATEMENT

17th October 2014

WAGE FREEZE: KILLING THE WORKER

The announcement by Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda that the wage freeze will be implemented even in 2015 was actually made during the presentation of the 2014 budget in parliament last year.

UPND, warned the Zambian people that the wage freeze would hurt most Zambian families especially that the PF had removed fuel and mealie meal subsidies. The subsidies were acting as a cushion to ameliorate the high cost of living.

The PF government and Mr. Chikwanda should not punish innocent Zambians for his reckless borrowing and myopic planning in national economic matters.

It is not the people of Zambia that forced Hon. Chikwanda to recklessly and corruptly dish out contracts for roads and bridges even when he had no money to pay and now wants to lamp the burden on the already heavily taxed but poorly paid Zambian workers.

UPND does not believe in a confrontational approach to solving issues such as demonstrations as ZCTU and its affiliates now want to do. But in a situation where dialogue fails as has been the case with the PF government that does not believe in round-table discussions, we have no choice but to support the workers in addressing their grievances because confrontation is the only language the PF understands.

We all know PF won elections on, among other lies, ‘more money in your pockets and lower taxes’ slogan. How does Chikwanda, who has imposed a wage freeze, reconcile this slogan with the real life for the Zambian workers and the firms that employ them?

Indeed, workers were promised more money and got a 52% increment in the 2014 budget towards personal emoluments and this pressure extended to private sector who had to match the civil servants salary increments by implementing a mandatory minimum wage.

But simple economics dictated that the firms equally had to increase cost of goods and services to raise money to meet these wages and this was coupled with a high cost of doing business after the removal of fuel subsidies.

The PF and Mr. Chikwanda’s poor and outdated economic measures are what we are seeing now where the cost of essential commodities and generally the cost of living is unbearable, the Kwacha is very weak, hospitals are poorly funded, and the education sector is in tatters. You know that your education sector is in tatters when students start committing suicide due to lack of bursaries.

There is no way we can have a wage freeze when electricity tariffs have increased, water tariffs increase, fees increased, and transport costs have increased.

UPND and my president Hakainde Hichilema, we resolved to first robustly grow the economy above 10% GDP through agriculture, mining, tourism and manufacturing (including agro processing) sectors with right incentives and this will increase employment sources, widen the tax and export base. The money generated from these sectors will then be used to support the social sectors such as education, health and develop road and other infrastructure without resorting to reckless borrowing.

Let me reiterate this, when Government closes its doors to collective bargaining and resorts to heavy handedness, the way Chikwanda is doing, the only way is to withdraw one’s services. So ZCTU and other unions are on firm ground to compel this Government to come to the table and give our civil service decent wages and this is fully supported by UPND.

Percy Chanda
UPND- Chairperson for Labour

27 COMMENTS

  1. You tribal party stop espousing fake economical policies which are good only on paper. We the civil servants have not mandated yon to talking on our behalf neither do we need support. You are the same people who duped the nurses last year where are?

    • @ Senior Civil Servant, so in your on moronic way of thinking, it is ok for constitutional office bearers to increase their salaries on top of heft perks like 800 liters of fuel, servant and entertainment allowance and deny civil servants a living wage? life is dynamic and variables that dictated a wage freeze are not constant. keep your tribal talk to PF

    • KILLING USING A GUN OR WHAT??? MATTER OF FACT THE UNION SIGNED A CRB WITH GOVERMENT TO WAGE FREEZE (CHIBWANTU FREEZE) FOR F^CKIN 2 YRS.SO WHTS THE HASSLE????

    • KILLING USING A GUN OR WHAT??? MATTER OF FACT THE UNION SIGNED A CBR WITH GOVERMENT TO WAGE FREEZE (CHIBWANTU FREEZE) FOR F^CKIN 2 YRS.SO WHTS THE HASSLE?

    • @Sinya fimo fimo. Stick to the issue and not attack an innocent man. What is tribal about HH? Just because watobela ubwali na kapenta you think uleikala bwino? Wage freeze is demonic my man. Wake up from your slumber. HH is right on this one.

    • Senior civil servant; it appears your seniority is in foolishness. Open your eye if at all they are able to see. am not surprised because even mentally challenged patients think they are normal. Am not surprised because you are a thick skinned tribalist.

  2. PF lies & lack of a genuine sustainable social-economic & viable proactive development agenda for the country are now coming to pass vividly.Just like it was in1991 so shall be in 2016-watch these social-economic hardships.You can not borrow huge sums of money & corruptly do shoddy road works & start ullulating with your gullible illiterate sycophants ATI NI-unprecedented development.This corruptly shared eurobond has to be paid by every Zambian Citizenry through tax!What a flea circus in PF and Its gullibles-Its like a parent failling to provide for his/her family due to poor planning of his income & decides to borrow money and go shopping foodstuffs & reaching home the family celebrates not critically analysing the aftermath of that endeavour.Thus our corruptly…

  3. we said it that after the church it will be UPND when PF gave us an icreament UPND shamlesly said the govt will fail to sustain. By the way can someone tell me UPND’s phylosophy if there is any. what we need is to force govt to reduce cost of production not salary increament eg buying fuel from Angola

    • @ Change, the UPND manifesto is anchored on the following four pillars;
      i. Prudent Economic Management
      ii. Agriculture and Food Security
      iii. Education
      iv. Health

  4. At times UPND you shud keep quiet to avoid being exposed. learn to set your own agenda not always being backers. We dont need increament if we love this country all we need is reduced transport,water,electricity,DSTV, tt and meal meal

    • Hamweene, It appears you do not seem to understand the prevailing social, political and economic situation in our country and of course PF 90day lies. WAKE up and start thinking about the welfare of future generations.

  5. KILLING USING A GUN OR WHAT??? MATTER OF FACT THE UNION SIGNED A CBR WITH GOVERMENT TO WAGE FREEZE (CHIBWANTU FREEZE) FOR F^CKIN 2 YRS.SO WHTS THE HASSLE????

  6. As everybody knows, I’m one of the most un-reserved critics of this government and I really don’t care whether someone agrees with me or not on any point.

    However, on wage-freeze I must say that the government has the timing correct. Because of their incompetence and greed over the past 3 years in running this economy, Chindakwanda has amassed so much debt for this country that we cannot afford any more debt. Now, there is no sensible person who understands economics and knows the desperate situation Zambia has found itself in who will think that we can remove the wage-freeze without borrowing more in order to fund salaries to keep up with inflation and the increasing cost of living. So I agree with Chindakwanda to keep wage-freeze in place while we work to reduce debt for next year.

  7. @Change & hamweene-Please if you never went to school you better keep quiet or hire someone to blog for you!Kindly revisit your comments & analyse them.For example-Change- you started very well by articulating that increaments were going to be unsustainable but you failled to fully understand that simple concept “unsustainable”.You illiterately touched-reduce cost of production & doing business -how? You don’t know the economic underpinnings behind those perceived high; costs of doing business & production costs!How can you have Ministers & Top Civil Servant Officials getting far beyond the least paid Civil Servants & you say we don’t need increaments? How could you support the removal of subsidies on fuel & agricultural inputs as well as increase the cost…

  8. CIVILSED how many vice presidents does UPND has? we dont need to fight or insult each other what we shud tell our govt is to suspend constructions of two universities and constituition this money goes to ZESCO, agriculture and railway line to Angola. we need cheaper fuel from Angola. .why is fuel cheaper in zimbabwe? Electricity and fuel will bring down the cost of business

  9. Much as I sympathize with civil servants on the wage freeze I wish to point out one thing. My colleagues in the civil service have entangled themselves in a lot of unnecessary loans which they have used to buy cars. Some have bought as many as 3 cars each. This to me is the cause for their small take home pay. UPND must ask these colleagues what their basic pay is. From this you will establish the basis not just simple politicking. One day you may form government and you will realise that talk is cheap.

  10. UPND really they are under _5s. What are they talking about? On one hand they oppose the wage freeze while on the other they justify its imposition. Guys, get this from me, no civil servant will join in your cadres demonstrations due to the fact that for now civil servants are comfortable. Ask teachers, ask nurses, ask any civil servant, they will tell you that they don’t mind the wage freeze.

    UNPD , just fight your own fight, do not pretend you are fighting for civil servant because when PF increased our salaries You as UPND opposed it saying where was PF government going to find the money. How come this round its you speaking on top of your voice supporting the increment??? Really people have weighed UPND and have noted that its a childish party.

  11. Truth, does UPND has a programe for us? which govt has gone beyond PF’s increament? leave govnance and economic issues to competent pipo. we know when time is right the able govt will increase our salary

  12. Countrymen and women, we all know Sata PF cheated and lied all the way till he went to plot 1. The fundamental issue is have things improved in the nation better and inclusive governance implemented?. UPND has not been in power but have put in place a blue print of their governing manifesto without deceptive tricks of 90 days, more money in your pockets and ‘Donchi kubeba’. To compare PF and UPND is self delusion of PF deceptive methods of politics. Let UPND govern, then we can make comparison.

  13. Removing a govt that got 3 out of 5 by elections is a huge mountain. It shows that more and more people are appreciating PF and the number appreciating opposition is dwindling. Way forwad lets work togather

  14. Really pf cadres are dull, hw do a normal person support wage freeze. Upnd is very correct on this one. Monkeys just go and heep yourselves in muchinga. Dogs.

  15. The wage freeze is an instrument EACH and EVERY government without fail has used to manage the economy and help balance their budgets. UPND must let us know what instruments they have at their disposal that they will or would intend to resort to in lieu of a wage freeze. In UNIP times we used to “tighten our belts” until our salaries were eroded beyond repair. 1997/98 Chiluba implemented a wage freeze; Magande, circa 2004 implemented a wage freeze. It is a prescription that governments use and is easily agreed to by so-called partners such as the World Bank and the IMF, amongst others. Another perspective to note is we are still donor driven, so largely being controlled by foreign governments’ tax base (yes, donor funds are tax!). Tell us, UPND.

  16. @ 18, Well said K, UPND is the only opposition party that has ever produced a shadow budget in the history of Zambian politics. That demonstrates a party is capable to govern based on ideas held by it, budget that compares competently with the governing party. MMD then in power borrowed ideas from that shadow budget. That is how civilized politics is played, pitting ideas that can benefit the nation. Under PF, they could not even produce a development strategy document as a road map for national development. All what is seen as development during this short time PF has been in office is MMD initiative development plans – Guy Scott confirmed it. Yes, UPND has a shadow budget available on request, accessed by its members.

  17. What happened when they got 100 percent pay increase in 2012? Are you guys naive and expecting another 90 percent increase. Wise up, you got the 100 percent we still have another 1 year and 2 months of wage freeze to go.

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