.SILIYA

By MOFFAT CHAZINGWA –

THE Kitwe City Council (KCC) is faced with debt in excess of K125 million against the K75 million the institution is being owed.
This has impacted on the financial status of the institution, leading to challenges to pay salaries to employees as a result of the council operating on a cash budget.
On Monday, council workers staged a protest over non-payment of December last year salaries which they had not yet received plus three-month arrears for salary increment.
Council spokesperson Dorothy Sampa who confirmed the development, said the council which has a monthly wage bill of K4 million against a workforce of more than 1, 000 employees had found itself in this dilemma because of operating on a cash budget.
“Even if what is being owed is paid to us, we still have a deficit and this has been a challenge,” Ms Sampa said.
She said the accrued debt liability was due to Zesco as well as water bills and other financial obligations such as payments to suppliers the council had to make.
Council workers, who included unionised and non-unionised division-four employees, boycotted work demanding to be paid outstanding salaries for December last year in addition to the backdated increment for salary arrears.
Zambia United Local Authority Workers Union (ZULAWU) vice-president Mabel Malukutu said the workers were aggrieved that management had failed to pay salaries since last year November.
Because of that, the workers on Monday morning downed tools and threatened to lock-out council directors prompting national union leaders to engage management over the matter.
“The problem is that we have two categories of employees namely staff under division one up to three and general workers under division four.
“Money for salaries for staff under division one to three has been coming from Government who contribute half and the other half comes from the council,” Ms Malukutu said.
She said the problem arose after the council management said they were unable to meet their obligation of raising money for their part-contribution to the salaries.
Ms Malukutu said the workers were, however, angered by the management’s failure to raise money to meet their obligation for salaries when in fact they had been procuring luxury vehicles.
The workers only agreed to resume work in the afternoon following a meeting involving the union leaders and council management, where it was agreed that workers would start receiving their salaries tomorrow starting with those under division four.