By CHUSA SICHONE  –
THE Government has discovered anomalies in the verification process of the 19,577 workers retrenched during the Public Service Reform Programme (PSRP), revealing that 3,003 were underpaid while others were overpaid.
In the earlier verification, 3,096 retrenchees were identified as being underpaid but the recent verification exercise reduced the number of underpaid workers to 3,003 while others were  found to be either overpaid or their names were duplicated.
Public Service Management Division (PSMD) said in a statement in response to a query that a joint team comprising officials from PSMD, Ministry of Justice, the plaintiffs’ lawyers and representatives of the latter’s clients completed the verification process on July 31, 2015.
“The report of those underpaid has now been cleared as at August 14, 2015 and is ready for submission to the Ministry of Justice for consideration and further action,’’ the statement read in part.
The on-going joint exercise would proceed to verify the figures for those found to have been overpaid or correctly paid so that the plaintiffs and their advocates are satisfied.
The verification was done after John Muyoya and 19,577 other retrenches sued the Attorney General seeking clarification on the payment of their benefits. According to PSMD, the retrenchees were paid their packages in line with the Redundancy Package Agreement between the PSMD and National Union of Public Service Workers.
The retrenchees, however, sued the Government claiming that there were some underpayments regarding calculations of long service bonuses.
The court ordered that the long service bonuses be re-computed in accordance with PSMD provisions of circular number B2 of 1997 and the redundancy package agreement between the Division and the National Union of Public Service Workers of June 11, 1992.
PSMD verified the benefits and submitted a report
comprising 12, 270 plaintiffs on November 21 last year to the Attorney General on the re-computed figures, and the report was shared with the plaintiffs’ lawyers for their verification before any payments were made.
“The re-computed benefits showed that there were 51 per cent overpaid, 26 per cent underpaid, 15 per cent correctly paid and eight per cent did not qualify,” the statement read in part.
It was in view of the aforesaid findings that the plaintiffs’ lawyers requested that PSMD, Ministry of Justice, representatives of the plaintiffs and their legal team verify the re-computed figures as the plaintiffs disputed the report alleging that it was somewhat erroneous.
PSMD’s reaction comes in the wake of concerns by the plaintiffs represented by Elijah Sakala on delays by the Government to pay them their dues.
Mr Sakala said in an interview that the more than 19,000 former Government workers countrywide were retrenched in 1997, 1998 and 1999 and had been pushing for their money since then, hence calling for President Edgar Lungu’s to intervene.
Mr Sakala said some of the retrenched workers had HIV and thus needed adequate food to go with the medicine.
“We are appealing to His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zambia to intervene in this matter,” Mr Sakala said.