Boitumelo Koloi
Maseru
The Minister of Home Affairs, Chief Joang Molapo, on Thursday managed to persuade the National Identity and Civil Registry (NICR) part-time workers to end their strike over the late-payment of their salaries.
Chief Molapo told the striking staff that their pay would be processed by tomorrow, and urged them to “continue helping Basotho who are looking to get help from your services.”
The part-timers are part of the 756 workers employed by the ministry on two-year renewable contracts to drive the rollout of the new national Identity Document (ID) and re-registration of births for every citizen by June 2015.
The Sunday Express understands the workers, who are based at the Maseru Post Office, decided to down tools to protest the “worrying trend” which they said had become the norm since they joined the ministry when the project began in 2012.
The workers, who spoke to the Sunday Express on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, said they had sought to “catch the minister’s attention when we realised that we were on the eighth day of the new month, and we had not been paid for the just-ended month”.
“How are we expected to perform when we do not get paid? Actually, this trend has been going on for some time now. As a matter of fact, some of us have not been paid for the past three months,” said one middle-aged woman, who said what was even more disappointing was that there was no official explanation regarding the delay and non-payment of the salaries.
“Each time we have sought clarity from the ministry, we are being sent from pillar to post. That is why we decided to down tools because enough is enough.”
However, on Thursday, after services had ground to a halt, the ministry’s top management, among them Minister Molapo, the Principal Secretary Chief Ranthomeng Matete and the NICR Director Mr Tumelo Raboletsi, went to address the workers.
The Minister told the staffers, who had threatened to continue with the strike until the money had been deposited in their bank accounts, that they should not put the ministry under any more pressure and hold Basotho to ransom.
“You cannot place us under any more pressure than you already have by chasing away the applicants and stopping services today. Please reconsider and return to work tomorrow while I find out what went wrong and start fixing it,” he said.
On Friday, when the Sunday Express visited the offices, the workers were back at work although there were numerous complaints regarding the pace of service.
“I came here very early this morning, only to be told that preference would be given to people who were here yesterday before the strike. I’m not even sure if I will get the service today,” said one of the ID applicants, amid a mass of people seeking the document.
Meanwhile, at the ministry’s headquarters, the accounts section was hard at work on Friday morning to ensure the workers were paid.
“Our accountants are working hard to make sure the payments are processed by Monday,” the Ministry’s Public Relations Officer, Mr Relebohile Moyeye, on Friday told the Sunday Express.