Illegal union transfers irk ZCTU

Sun, 07 Jan 2018 10:43:28 +0000

By AARON CHIYANZO

THE illegal transfer of teachers on payroll from one union to another by the Ministry of General Education is deeply saddening, Zambia Congress of Trade Unions director for public relations and international affairs, Martin Chembe has charged.

Mr Chembe explained that the payroll movements were being done without the consent of the affected teachers, which he said exposed weak supervisory mechanisms at the Ministry of General Education.

He said in a statement that ZCTU had received a number of complaints from the affected teachers who had expressed surprise at the development because they never made any applications to change unions.

Mr Chembe said he suspected that the transfers were being done in order to destabilise other unions. The teachers were being moved from different unions by the Ministry.

He expressed surprise that a Ministry which was just coming from answering serious audit queries concerning misuse and misappropriation of funds would allow its officials to engage in such activities.

Mr Chembe charged that it was even more disappointing that people supervising the payroll system in the Ministry would allow the transfers to go on.

“ZCTU is deeply saddened and concerned by the conduct of the Ministry of General Education which has been illegally transferring teachers on payroll from one union to another. Such payroll movements have been done without the consent of the affected teachers and this exposes a weak supervisory mechanism at the Ministry of General Education.

“The ZCTU has received a number of complaints from the affected teachers who have expressed surprise at the development because they never made any applications to change unions. This may also explain why there are dubious payment of allowances to wrong people,” he said.

Mr Chembe reiterated that the supervisors should have raised a red flag upon realising that there was massive payroll transfers of teachers from various unions within the ministry to one particular union.

He charged that the fact that the supervisors chose to remain silent meant that they were involved in the scandal and that it was regrettable that this was allowed to go on.

“Teacher unions have lost members through this carefully orchestrated move by the Ministry and we want to appeal to investigative wings to probe who is involved in perpetuating such an illegality at the Ministry Headquarters” said Mr Chembe.

Mr Chembe said that people should not be allowed to tamper with the payroll anyhow, especially that money gets involved in the process and the owners of such funds were not consulted as doing so raised a lot of suspicions.