Mon, 24 Apr 2017 13:41:24 +0000
By Chintu Malambo
THE private sector was already overburdened with taxes and other statutory contributions to the extent that any additional costs to be introduced such as those intended by the ministry would suffocate the private sector, says Zambia Federation of Employers vice president Stephen Sikombe.
And Mr Sikombe observed that the Ministry of Labor was the least funded while the treasury was in a deficit and unable to increase funding to government ministries above last year’s level of funding.
He said that it was important that the Government through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to remember that the private sector had also been operating in the same hard economy and faced the same effects faced by Government in the past two years and any additional taxes would make the cost of doing business difficult.
“We would like to remind the Government through the Ministry of Labor that the private sector has also been operating in the same hard economy and have faced the same effects that the Government has been facing in the last two years.
“Therefore, any additional fees or taxes on the private sector will simply make the environment for doing business very difficult,” he said.
Mr Sikombe revealed that there were so many obligations to the employers as regards to the payroll based National Scheme Authority (NAPSA) contributions, Workers Compensation Fund and Control Board (WCFCB) statutory assessments and the recently introduced skills development levy which all added up to the cost of labour.
He stressed that the Ministry of Health was soon going to be presenting a bill to Parliament to introduce the social health insurance scheme which was going to be another payroll based expense to the employer.
Mr Sikombe said with the current expenses on the employer, employers were going to either keep salaries low so that the percentage obligations remain manageable or reduce on the number of employees so that the aggregated obligation bill was maintained low.
“The simple implication of this is that employers will have to make one of the two considerations or both, either keep salaries low so that the percentage obligations remain manageable or reduce on the number of employees so that the aggregated obligation bill was maintained low,” he said.
