MBABANE – Employees of Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC) are frustrated by ‘an unfulfilled promise by management’ to grant them a cost-of-living adjustment (CoLA).
The employees have been demanding this money since last year, after government awarded a 3.05 per cent increase to all parastatals.
Some of the employees who spoke to this publication said they had engaged the management of the State-owned enterprise (SoE) countless times regarding the CoLA and were informed that the parastatal did not have the funds.
The workers claimed to have then requested permission to engage the Minister for Information, Communication and Technology (ICT), Savannah Maziya.
Their request, they said, was approved. According to the employees, they wrote to the minister and outlined the challenges they were facing, including concerns about contracts for some employees which were said to be affected by possible retrenchments.
The minister is said to have advised that the Chairman of the EPTC Board, Kwanele Magagula, should handle the matter. During engagements between the chairman and representatives of the employees, a suggestion was reportedly made that, since the employer did not have the funds, management should consider granting at least two per cent.
A letter is said to have been written to management proposing the two per cent adjustment. However, management is said to have advised that it could no longer deal with the matter since the employees had already engaged a higher authority, namely the minister.
Last week, the employees are said to have asked their representatives to engage the minister again, as they believe the chairman is not assisting them. “The situation is bad. It is March now and we have not received the CoLA. We are also suffering because the medical aid contribution that we make has increased. Also, we are being taxed more and we do not know what is happening,” one of the employees said.
When contacted for comment, the chairman said the corporation understands and appreciates the concerns raised regarding staff welfare.
According to Magagula, management is actively engaging with all relevant stakeholders to address these concerns. “The corporation is committed to its employees’ well-being, including the payment of fair remuneration, underpinned by the corporation’s ability to meet its obligations. “The corporation is further committed to complying with all tax obligations as may be determined by the tax authorities from time to time,” he said.
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