Election officers decry IEC payment delays

Pini Bothoko | Friday January 23, 2015 18:53

So far about 36,000 government officers are worried that they worked extended hours at the elections and are yet to be paid for their sweat.

The workers were promised payment either at the end of November or December, but they are still waiting for their dues.

IEC principal public relations officer, Osupile Maroba disclosed to Mmegi that the delay has been caused by a new system of payment they have introduced.

“I appreciate that we have taken so long to pay all of the 36,000 people we have hired in last year’s general elections. We thought we had paid them all at the latest being in December, but we failed because of the new financial regulations that delayed the payment process,” said Maroba.

Maroba said their wish was to have paid everyone by December, but they had to follow the right procedures of which they could not take shortcuts with. Maroba said during the previous elections they paid some officers their dues well on time, but the old payment system is no longer in use.

He said at the moment, the IEC has completed processing adjustment vouchers and have submitted them to the ministries that the concerned workers fall under, to process casualty returns.

He said they worked different hours, so overtime is not the same and therefore payments are processed differently, which he suspects is what caused the delay. Maroba said for example, for teachers the vouchers are sent to the Ministry of Education and Skills Development who will process their payments and send to the Ministry of Finance for salaries. “This is a process, but the people of Francistown will soon receive their payments because the region has long submitted their claims. 

Some regions just submitted claims in January and as for them their payments will be a bit late.  The delay may be up to March,” he said.

He believes that this month some ministries might have started paying the workers.

“I plead for forgiveness because the system that we are using delayed their payments but I urge them to be patient because they will all in the end be paid,” said Maroba.

A woman who officiated at the elections anonymously said that they were promised payment last year, but are still looking forward for their dues even to date.  She said that they do not know what the delay is all about, but they heard rumours that IEC has long submitted payments to their ministry.

“For us who officiated at the cattleposts and were camping, we were promised that firstly we will be paid money for nights out of our stations end of November, but even up to now we have not yet been paid,” she said.

She added that they are expecting to be paid for overtime, especially that October 24, 2014 was declared a paid holiday.

Another government official who also preferred anonymity for fear of victimisation said that she received all of her payment in her end of January salary.  She said that the payment delayed because they were supposed to have been paid end of November or December last year.

She added that they were able to understand the delays because their employer addressed them on their payments.

“They had told us in advance that our payments will be delayed for either end of December or January ending,” she said.