Workers at Mulungushi International Conference Centre (MICC) have lamented of injustices they have suffered for along time now, inflicted by centre General Manager, Mr Nthando Sibanda.
The workers who spoke on condition of annoninty for fear of discrimination have spoken out on various abuses they have suffered at the hands of Mr Sibanda, saying they feel abused and demotivated to work under the prevailing conditions.
Mr Sibanda who is a Zimbabwean national, according to the workers, has continued to threaten them with dismissals and has even imposed his own working conditions, thereby abrogating the country’s labour laws.
Tender procedures have been breached resulting into acquisition of K100,000 by the director who later constituted procurement management Committee to cover his tracks according to information gathered.
The workers further disclosed that the manager received money from Multiserve, a company at arcades before the management procurement committee sat,after which money amounting to K100,000 between 25 and 31st August 2021 was gotten against the threshold policy of K50,000.
They said anything above the threshold is subjected to tender which was not followed because the tender committee only sat in November, 2021.
No salary increment since 2016, disparities in wages and other conditions of service in favour of the manager’s favourites are among other issues that have been raised .
The workers have called on the relevant authorities to take keen interest in the matter which they have said goes against government’s desire to create, sustain and protect jobs in a good and acceptable working conditions.
The workers have complained of intimidation, saying their boss only gives full contract renewals to people who do not oppose his bad way of leadership.
“He insults and also shouts at employees without any respect and uses threatening language and dares us to report to whoever and wherever we want, adding that he does not care as he has nothing to loose” lamented one of the workers.
They have further disclosed that what the manager reports to the board is not a representation of management’s position as he makes own decisions without consultation.
“An example is, he imposed a K300 increment on transport allowance for management without engagement and says we must infact thank him” they lamented.
“We have unbelievable disparities in salaries while him has a superior contract within the management team while the rest of the team only had an increment in 2016 and he says he fought for his conditions of service but doesn’t allow us to do the same but instead threatens us by saying go and get jobs elsewhere, because under my watch it’s not going to happen” the workers further said.
They are unhappy that conditions of service have been tempered with to an extent were the director has even removed medical allowance and further said the education allowance will also be moved since government has introduced free education.
“When asked why he didn’t engage us, he said if we are not happy, we should go with placards to the gate and protest against our government saying he is not Zambian and it doesn’t affect him” they have said.
The workers have also questioned his involvement in acquisition of a loan from IDC without reporting to members and also failing to disclose the reasons for the loan, whose investment is only known to him and his board and not management.
They have also complained that the manager is not consultative, but makes his own independent decisions and resolutions at the expense of the workers.
And when reached for a comment, Mr Sibanda declined to give any responses regarding any of the listed grievances and allegations by the workers, saying he can’t say anything without the authorization of the board.
He said the information could be coming from people who he does not trust.
“Am a public servant and I will not comment on a public blog without the consent of my board, just come and I will call my board and we make a decision, we don’t make decisions as individuals. Allegations will always be allegations”
