By Syriacus Buguzi
Dar
es Salaam — President John Magufuli yesterday promised to employ 52,000
new workers in various departments in government this year as he
outlined his four major pledges to public sector employees during the
International Workers' Day celebrations.
Dr Magufuli said
the government would soon embark on a process to ensure job promotions
and salary increments to the workers, after after failing to do so last
year pending the completion of the process to strike out "ghost"
workers.
The government has
until recently said that there were over 19,706 ghost workers who were
being paid billions of shillings and this hampered the efforts to put
genuine workers on payroll. A recent report also showed that there were
over 10,000 other civil servants holding fake certificates.
Ahead of
yesterday's Wokers' Day Celebrations, President Magufuli sacked the over
9,000 fake certificate holders. He announced the sacking in Dodoma on
Friday. He said this was one step towards creating employment
opportunities in the government for workers who were still jobless.
Adding on his major
pledges, President Magufuli promised to revamp the pension schemes and
streamline the payment retirement benefits to workers.
The head of state
said that the government is in the final stages of the process to form a
scheme, guided by the law, which would help workers claim for
unemployment benefits when they lose their job contacts.
"When this law is
passed by the parliament, I will sign it on the very day it arrives in
my office," emphasized the President amid applause from the
public--mostly Moshi residents who gathered at Moshi Co-operative
University (MoCU) grounds on Workers' Day Celebrations.
The president noted
that the unemployment benefits system which he has promised, would
replace the earlier Social Security Act; where members of Social
security and pension funds used to withdraw and receive their financial
benefits from pension fund institutions, before attaining retirement
age.
He also revealed
that a Ministerial Secular was being prepared by the government on how
to unify the pension and social security funds and when the secular is
completed, it would give way for the formation of a law to reduce the
number of pension funds from the current known seven to two.
"By creating two
pension funds, it will make it easy to create a unified payment formula
for all beneficiaries. This has been a major outcry of workers under
their union. I am taking this forward and I promise to work on it," said
Dr Magufuli.
He called on
employers across the country to ensure that they deliver their pension
contributions to the fund institutions on time, but he admitted that the
government was one of the institutions lagging behind in delivering the
payments.
"Before we[the
government] start blaming others, it's high time we cleaned our house
first. That's why I am making this solemn promise to show an example to
all other employers," he said.
"There have been
complaints about delayed payment of retirement benefits. As you may
know, the government is also partly to blame for this delay. We[the
government] have confessed and I promise to work on it," he said.
He recalled that by
the time he got in office, the government had not delivered about
Sh1.5trillion in payment for retirement benefits. The president said
that since 2010, a large portion of the retirement funds had not been
delivered to the pension institutions.
"I want to let you
know that as we speak now, I have already delivered Sh1.23trillion. I
promise to finish the remaining amount sooner than later," promised Dr
Magufuli amid cheers.
He rallied for
support from the workers to his government in ensuring that that the
institutions were working efficiently to serve the public as he defended
the 15 per cent pay cut from beneficiaries of the Higher Learning
Education Students' Loans Board (HESLB).
According to Dr
Magufuli, out of the Sh427billion that must be paid to HESLB, only
Sh181.4billion has been paid by the loan beneficiaries. He warmed that
failure to pay the loans, the HRSLB would be crippled and this would
deny loans to several new students.
"Those who
benefitted from the loans must pay so that the governments gets funds to
pay for other students who are getting enrolled," he said.
Last year, the
government passed a law in parliament under the Miscellaneous Amendments
to raise the pay cut from 8 to 15 percent for all beneficiaries of the
HESLB since last year.
There has been a
clamour from workers for the government to reverse its decision but
their appeals appear not to hold water as the president appeared to hit
"the last nail on the coffin" of the debate of whether to stop the 15
percent increase or not.
He strongly
defended the pay cut saying, "It doesn't matter when you took the loan.
There are those who took loans as far back as 2000 and so on. They were
also complaining that this 15 percent does not concern them. The issue
at hand is that you owe the loans board . Pay it."
"It would have been
better if you pay the whole loan now. Even if you can afford 50
percent. Pay it so that you remain free from the loan," he said.
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