Ntsebeng Motsoeli
SCORES of civil servants from the Ministry of Health are yet to receive their salaries for the month of May.
The government workers, who spoke to the Sunday Express on condition of anonymity, said they only got their pay cheques on Wednesday, a week later than the government pay date of the 25th of the month.
They would have to wait for another seven days before the banks can cash their cheques.
Last month the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) announced that government employees in the ministries of Health and Local Government would receive their salaries in the form of cheques.
The two ministries are being used in government’s pilot payroll audit to assess whether its payroll has ghost workers.
The CBL and government representatives had assured that the employees would get their money immediately upon being presented with the cheques.
The employees, however, said they were baffled when they were told they could only access their funds after seven days.
“That means we will get our salaries two weeks later than the normal time,” one of the employees said.
“This is the biggest inconvenience ever and shows that government imposed this new system on us without proper preparations.”
Standard Lesotho Bank Chief Executive Officer, Mpho Vumbukani, said they had been informed of the delay, adding that the problem was being addressed.
Mr Vumbukani said the moving of deposited cheques from the banks to their headquarters and then to the CBL for clearance was contributing to the delay.
He added that the implementation of the automated cheques clearance system, which will go live of 9 August, would ease the delay in the future.
“Everbody is hoping that going forward this will be better,” Mr Vumbukani said.
CBL Head of Operations, Seabata Ntelo, said that they have already advised government on how to address the payment processes so that the delay does not happen again.
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