Concerned civil servants, CSTU clash over pension scheme

Concerned Civil Servants grouping has clashed with the Civil Serv-ants Trade Union (CSTU), accusing it of failing to address their con-cerns, including challenges being experienced under the govern-ment’s contributory pension scheme. The group’s chairperson Frank Kamwendo told The Nation yesterday that they have observed numerous challenges surrounding the scheme and want the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament to inter-vene. Their concerns include the alleged failure by members to access part of their pension benefits after five years.

“Our mother union seems not to care and no wonder we’ve reached out to PAC. We wrote to CSTU first and they were not committed. They only promised to come back to us yet they never did,” said Kamwendo.

He said that one civil servant, for example, who worked for more than 25 years and rose from Grade I to Grade H, is expected to receive “only K18 million” in retirement benefits paid in two instalments. She will receive K9 million immediately, while the remainder will remain with the insurer. But CSTU has discredited the concerned group, saying it is an unregistered outfit and has failed to follow proper procedures in addressing the issues.

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While acknowledging challenges with the current pension ar-rangement, CSTU president Lameck Magawa said the group rushed to publicise the matter despite the union promising to re-spond to them. “Whenever they have something that impinges on them, they do not follow procedures, but issue out letters,” said Magawa yester-day in a telephone interview. He said CSTU has also been willing to meet government authorities to discuss several issues, including the challenges being experi-enced under the contributory medical scheme, such as delays in payments.

Department of Human Resources Management and Development spokesperson Ken Mtonga yesterday asked for time before he could respond. But PAC chairperson Steven Malondera said he was yet to receive a petition from the concerned group. “Maybe we will check tomorrow, as of now, we do not have,” he said in a WhatsApp message. According to Magawa, the contributory scheme was introduced in 2017, and every civil servant who was under 35 years of age as of July 1 2017, as well as those who joined the civil service after that date, falls under the contributory scheme.

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