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By SIFISO DLAMINI Lobamba | 2024-11-15
MEMBERS of Parliament (MPs) have observed that in order to avoid unnecessary protests and instability in the country, government should prioritise payment of all monies owed to civil servants.
This was during another mixed debate on the delayed payment of overtime owed to immigration offices dating back to 2015.
MPs said it was injustice for government to delay the payment, pointing out that there were many civil servants who were frustrated by delayed payments, including junior security officers.
They said government's alleged lack of political will to address the issues was causing unnecessary tension, while questioning whether ongoing negotiations on the owed payments were in good faith. Minister of Public Service Mabulala Maseko's attempts to justify the delay in the payment of overtime fell on deaf ears.
This was during the debate of the response to a private members' motion on the reasons behind the delay in payment of the ministry of home affairs immigration staff.
The question for oral answers was moved by Deputy Speaker Madala Mhlanga who is also Mhlangatane MP.
While motivating for the adoption of the responses, the minister revealed that he accepted the question with reservations as he felt it was directed to the wrong ministry.
The minister argued that the question should have been directed to the ministry of home affairs because his ministry was a conduit for implementing justified reasons to issue payment instruments.
He said payments were only authorised when accompanied by authentic supporting documents.
He acknowledged that the issue dated as far back as 2015 and assured that together with the ministry of home affairs and the employees’ representatives were still at the negotiating table and yet to reach an agreement.
Explaining the procedure for granting overtime, Maseko said according to the General Orders of 1969, the line ministry was expected to forward a formal request to the ministry of public service before the employees worked the hours.
Calculate
He said with some government institutions such as the police service, it was not easy to calculate the number of hours to be worked.
However, he added that there was a provision for a flat rate being 15 per cent for junior officers, while senior officers were paid five per cent of their salary in overtime.
“In this case a request was not forwarded and the information given was not satisfactory enough to justify the payment,” he said.
He added that according to the general orders, in order to qualify for overtime, an employee had to work 176 hours a month. Explaining the challenges faced in this regard, the minister said some of the employees worked between 120 and 150 hours, which meant that they did not qualify for overtime.
He said they requested the employees’ representatives to forward the required information to justify why they should be paid the overtime.
Maseko said under the shift system, which most of the immigration officers worked under, if day one of the shift began on Friday, they could not claim overtime for Saturday and Sunday since they were remunerated as holidays.
He said he was not comfortable deliberating the issue in parliament because it was already being dealt with between the employee representatives and the two ministries.
He said there were other structures that needed to be followed should they not reach an agreement such as the Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration Commission (CMAC) and the Industrial Court. He further said the budget for overtime was not under his ministry but they only issued the instrument to pay once all the boxes were ticked.
"Also, paying overtime willy-nilly is risky, hence the need for the provision of the supporting documents," he said.
The mover of the question, MP Mhlanga said he was disappointed that the minister was taking them back to the same issue that the question was misdirected and should have been directed to the ministry of home affairs.
Other MPs joined in the debate, mostly urging the minister to pay the owed civil servants.
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