By Dickson Jere
Sixty Zambia Police officers who are seconded to the Bank of Zambia (BOZ) had a complaint. Their colleagues employed directly by BOZ were getting better wages compared to them even though they had similar ranks and performing same duties. This prompted the 60 police officers to sue BOZ under Cause No. 2021/HP/0856 demanding that they ought to be paid similar wages like BOZ security officers.
The police officers solely based their claims on the Cabinet Circular No.3 of 2001 which states that seconded civil servants should never be disadvantaged in terms of wages when attached to statutory bodies and other government departments.
On the other hand, BOZ argued that this Circular does not cover the bank and consequently cannot bind it.
High Court Judge, Charles Kafunda had conduct of this case. He ably analyzed the case and ruled that BOZ is in fact bound by this Cabinet Circular even though it was not addressed to BOZ but by virtue of it being a statutory body.
“I therefore find that the Plaintiffs were entitled to the conditions of the Defendant bank,” Judge Kafunda ruled and ordered that the 60 police officers be paid salaries, overtime allowance, shift differential allowances and gratuity with interest to be assessed.
“…by providing unfavorable conditions for seconded officers and which conditions were different from those of the officers employed by the Defendant Bank, the Defendant was in contravention of the Cabinet Circular…” the Judge added.
However, BOZ was not with the Judgement and decided to climb the judicial ladder and appealed to the Court of Appeal. However, BOZ did not file the record of appeal within the stipulated 60 days period prompting the dismissal of the case.
Court of Appeal Judge, Mubanga Kondolo, SC had this to say about the fate of the appeal under Cause No. CAZ/8/279/2023.
“The Appellant (BOZ) has not offered any explanation as to why it did not apply to enlarge time before the 60 day period elapsed,” Judge Kondolo observed in his Ruling of 24th January 2024 and dismissed the case with costs against BOZ.
“The Appellant’s affidavit in opposition is extremely laissez-faire as it does not provide a single reason as to why the Appellant failed to file the record of appeal within the prescribed period,” the Judge said.
Quite interested to know how gratuity will be calculated and paid to officers who are supposed to be on permanent and pensionable scheme. Equally, the coming into force of the Emoluments Commission – which aims at standardising wages in public sector- may render the Cabinet Circular redundant is near future.
(Bernard Fundi (Suing on behalf of 59 others) v Bank of Zambia).
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