01 May 2019

 The acting president of Botswana Teachers Union (BTU), Mr Obeile Molamu, has thanked government for adjusting civil servants salaries last month.

Speaking during Labour Day in Francistown May 1, Mr Molamu said salary increment was long overdue.

In other issues, Mr Molamu decried that most workers in the private sector were paid below the minimum wage.

He, therefore, called on the government to enforce labour laws that protected employees in the private sector.

Mr Molamu said some companies had a tendency of intimidating employees who intended to join labour movements as per requirements of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Mr Molamu said retrenchment packages should be entrenched in the laws and health hazards should also be a priority.

He called on government to intensify fight against corruption by investigating all those said to be corrupt.

“Vultures are hovering over the public pension fund, which is the only public employee investment,” he added.

The BTU acting president appealed to government to protect the pension fund by dealing with corrupt individuals and practices.

Mr Molamu said while public unions appreciated the new pay structure that increased salaries for the uniformed officers, there was still a pending process of negotiation between government and the bargaining council.

“We are not against that, what we are saying is that whilst we are still negotiating, government must wait until we finish our negotiations,” he added.

He said whilst trade unions were not opposing the increment for political officers, it was not done according to corporate standard practices.

Mr Molamu advised that an independent body could have been established to consider politicians’ remuneration.

When launching the workers manifesto, Botswana Federation of Trade Union (BFTU) president, Mr Martin Gabobake said public servants’ salaries were lower than those of expatriates.

Mr Gabobake said the conditions and welfare of civil servants were also in a bad state and appealed to government to consider improving them.

“Botswana is a rich country of poor citizens and the country is corrupted with poor good governance in some sectors,” he said.

On other issues, Mr Gabobake said in 2018, BOFEPUSU passed a resolution to develop the workers’ manifesto that would inform, guide and influence political parties manifesto for the general elections.

 He said though the federation had no intention to take any political side, it believed that it had a duty to educate and inform its members about pertinent, social and economic issues that affected them so that they could ask those running for political office to correct.

The manifesto addressed issues of national importance with demands and concise, he said, adding that the document would be distributed to Batswana in June this year.

He said trade unions believed in promoting social dialogue, consultations and negotiations saying unions were independent bodies that should not run their mandate with external influence.

Some private companies did not adhere to good labour practices as enshrined in the various labour laws, he added.

He, therefore, called on government to heed the calls by Batswana and labour movements to ensure that private companies complied to the labour regulations, adding that some workers were being dismissed because they belonged to unions.

Mr Gabobake also called on Business Botswana to partner with trade unions in educating workers on labour relations.

He said it was time to focus on the private sector because it had potential to create employment. ENDS