Laid off Nida workers demand Sh900m as outstanding dues
Laid off workers gather at National Identification Authority (Nida) offices located in Mikocheni in Dar es Salaam yesterday to demand payment of their salary arrears after Nida terminated their contracts on Monday. PHOTO | SAID KHAMIS
What you need to know:
The workers’ leader, Mr Seif Kibangu, complained: “They have decided to send us home, but they have to pay us salary arrears for three months so that we can pursue other things.”
Dar es Salaam. Over 500 laid off workers of the National Identification Authority (Nida) yesterday stormed into their former employer’s office at Victoria to demand over Sh900 million being their three months’ salary arrears. They said the government decision to end their contracts without giving them notice was unfair and without regard to labour laws.
The workers’ leader, Mr Seif Kibangu, complained: “They have decided to send us home, but they have to pay us salary arrears for three months so that we can pursue other things.”
He explained that for temporary contracts were paid Sh20,000 a day, but they had not been paid for three months and they were working without complaining. Yet, the employer never valued their imput and so decided to expel them.
Mr Kibangu further said some of them went to check members’ contributions to the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) and found that since July last year Nida had not deposited their contributions although the usual ten per cent of their salaries was deducted. For his part, Mr Rashid Sadallah said since June last year Nida started deducting medical cover money from their salaries, yet they were not issued with any medical insurance cards.
“We know the President has good intention to help the youth, but he is now creating unemployment to 590 graduates. Where can we get other jobs right now? Nida has been encouraging and promising us that we will be employed and we were relaxing, but today we are told to go home,” he complained. On Monday Nida terminated the contracts of at least 590 temporary employees and there are plans to review the contracts of more than 800 permanent employees in a bid to increase efficiency and reduce running costs. Nida has a capacity of producing 24,000 national ID cards per day, but it has been producing only 1,200.
At the end of January this year, President John Magufuli fired Nida director-general Dickson Maimu and three other officials, following questionable expenditure of Sh179.6 billion by Nida in the national IDs scheme.
Reached yesterday for comment, the Nida acting director general, Dr Modestus Kipilimba, said they were revising the contracts of those workers to know each other’s claims.
