Lesotho - Civil servants to down tools
Date
3/23/2022 1:03:02 AM
(MENAFN- The Post)
MASERU – CIVIL servants are set to down tools next Thursday to protest against the five percent salary increase the government awarded two weeks ago.
The public servants want a 25 percent and say they will keep fighting until the government concedes to their demands.
They are planning to march to the parliament to submit a petition to Speaker Sephiri Motanyane and Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro.
The group is made up of seven associations and unions of nurses, teachers, police officers and other civil servants.
He said they have since written to the police to request a permit for the protest.
The procession will start from Setsoto Stadium at 9am.
Inspector 'Makatleho Mphetho, the secretary general of the Police Staff Association (LEPOSA), said they don't believe the government's claims that it is broke.
“We know the government can pay the 25 percent,” Mphetho said.
The government says it is facing a financial crisis due to a massive drop in tax revenues caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
It also says its wage bill is already gobbling a huge chunk of its budget.
But civil servants say the government is being dishonest because it recently awarded M5 000 monthly fuel allowances to MPs.
“Those allowances are proof that the government has the money to pay but it just doesn't want to give it to civil servants,” Ntsibolane said.
The government's annual wage bill is about M6 billion.
A 25 percent increase will put the bill to M7.5 billion, money that the government cannot raise from local tax sources.
The civil servants also want the government to increase the non-taxable income threshold.
“The current threshold has remained unchanged for some years,” said the coalition in the initial letter to the prime minister before the budget.
“These changes will go a long way to increasing our buying power and the government will subsequently collect more VAT,” the letter reads.
Other associations in the coalition are the Lesotho Nurses Association, Qiloane Nurse Assistance Association, Lesotho Teachers Trade Union and Lesotho Public Service Staff Association and Lesotho School Principals Association.
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