Home | News | CIVIL SERVANTS ESCAPE NO-WORK, NO-PAY AGAIN

CIVIL SERVANTS ESCAPE NO-WORK, NO-PAY AGAIN

17/02/2023 07:48:00 Sithembile Hlatshwayo

Font size:

MBABANE – Civil servants will once again be spared from deductions of the no-work, no-pay rule in their salaries.

This is the third month now since government has been postponing the process to implement the no-work, no-pay, as per its promise in December. A number of civil servants failed to reach their workplaces during the two-day stay-away by public transport workers on December 13 and 14, 2022, as there was no transport. The public transport workers parked their vehicles in solidarity with the incarcerated Members of Parliament (MPs) who were due to make their court appearance on these two days.

The MPs are Mduduzi ‘Bacede’ Mabuza of Hosea and Mthandeni Dube of Ngwempisi. Following the lack of transport to move around, some civil servants did not show up at work, claiming that they did not have the means to reach their workstations as there was no public transport. Government was adamant that they would effect the no-work, no-pay rule as there was alternative transport it had provided.

The Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Public Service, Sipho Tsabedze, said there were close to 500 or more civil servants who would be affected by the no-work, no-pay rule. Tsabedze said they failed to effect the deductions last month due to the early payment as deduction processes were cumbersome. He added that this month, some ministries failed to submit the list of names of those employees who absented themselves, hence the process had not been effected. The PS said the process may be delayed but the government employees were not off the hook.

Process

Tsabedze said they needed to process everything at once, hence they were awaiting the other ministries to bring forward their lists. Reached for comment, National Public Services and Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU) President Oscar Nkambule said government should leave civil servants alone as they did not have money and they were hungry. He said nobody was at work on the two days, even the supervisors and there was nowhere they could get the lists of names.

Nkambule stated that the reason ministries had not submitted lists was because they did not have them as their supervisors were also absent from work. He said it would actually be criminal of government to make the deductions and they would challenge them in court if they did so.