THE Government will tomorrow convene a crunch meeting with the Apex Council to deliberate on the civil servants remuneration with a new offer on the table which will put to an end the tug of war, which has been going on since April.
Tomorrow’s meeting will be the last to be convened by the
two parties and if they fail to reach a consensus, according to the law, the
negotiations will be deemed as a deadlock. Both Government and the civil
servants have expressed confidence that the meeting will yield positive results
and that some teachers who were threatening to down tools and had taken a
lethargic approach to go to work ahead of full-scale school opening next week
will rethink their action.
Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister
Professor Paul Mavima told Sunday News that Government will bring a new offer
to the table, expressing hope that the workers will accept it.
“The meeting with civil servants representatives will be
held on Monday. Government has a new offer for the civil servants. We will
discuss the new offer in the meeting. Unfortunately, I can’t pre-empt the offer
before the meeting. While we are meeting civil servants representatives, we are
urging teachers to report for duty rather than withholding the service.
“They should not hold Government to ransom. They can report
for work while we finish the negotiations. The Second Republic is a listening
Government,” he said.
Apex Council chairperson Mrs Cecilia Alexander said
tomorrow’s meeting will be the third and final meeting between Government and
the civil servants representatives. Mrs Alexander said they were hopeful that
the meeting will yield positive results failure of which would be a stalemate.
“The meeting with Government has been scheduled for Monday.
Legally this will be the last meeting between Government and civil servants
regarding this matter. We hope that we will reach an agreement. If we do not,
it means we would have reached a deadlock and we can’t negotiate any further.
These are the provisions of the law. We are not privy to what Government is
bringing to the table on Monday. We will be updating you on the outcome of the
meeting. We have been having the negotiations since April and the Monday
meeting will be our last,” she said.
The Government recently effected a 40 percent
cost-of-living salary adjustment for civil servants which they started
receiving last month while negotiations continue with unions representing civil
servants over a final agreement on wages and other employment terms.
The adjustment was in addition to the continuation of the
US$75 a month Covid-19 allowance which are among interim steps taken by the
Government to help cushion its employees while the negotiations are in
progress. Sunday News
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