03 Dec 2014

Public employees are faced with challenges that undermine productivity and worsen the state of their livelihoods, says Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU) president, Mr Andrew Motsamai.

Speaking at the 72nd annual BOPEU convention held in Palapye on Tuesday, December 2 Mr Motsamai said those challenges included the high cost of living which has become unaffordable to most public service employees.

He said many employees work in difficult conditions such as shortage of accommodation in various towns and cities yet high quality service has to be delivered.Mr Motsamai said the government delayed in implementing a long made decision on housing allowance for public service employees, adding that this matter had been shuttled for far too long.

To address accommodation problem, Mr Motsamai said the union has adopted a strategy of securing land in major towns and cities with a dense concentration of union members adding “we continue to invite funders and investors who could work with us in providing turnkey housing projects to members,” he said

Mr Motsamai said so far the union has acquired land in Palapye, Morwa and Francistown but the biggest challenge was that most of the available land was un-serviced.

“We hope that the assertions made by government recently regarding promotion of home ownership would be extended in a smart partnership with the workers to address shortage of accommodation for public service employees,” he said

BOPEU leader said the government effort in smart partnership with the union if well thought out and managed could go an extra mile in reducing shortage of accommodation for public service workers.

Regarding the Public Service Bargaining Council, Mr Motsamai said the council remained the bastion of hope to workers.

He said there had been a lot of negative publicity associated with the council adding that the poor image was not helped by the negative energy displayed by the behaviour of both parties to the bargaining council.

He said as a result of that adversarial behaviour that characterised the birth of the bargaining council, social dialogue failed dismally.

“It appears from the look of things that the government as the employer and the trade unions were not prepared to engage on other matters crucial to the operations of the workplace structures as well as other conditions of service, instead the council persistently found itself zeroing only on salaries,” he said.

Furthermore, Mr Motsamai said regrettably both the employer and trade unions continued to operate in silos, formulating workplace structures that are yet to be presented at the bargaining council.“Our efforts to establish proper consultation structures for our trade unions remained frustrated,” he added

Nonetheless Mr Motsamai said his union decided in the interim to utilise the opportunity to solicit additional views from visiting international trade unions for possible nourishment of ideas. ENDS