Strikers had a point, BURS boss concedes

Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Wednesday October 7, 2015 10:21

Testifying before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee on Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises, Morris said although the industrial action was worrisome, workers had reasonable complaints.

“We have serious funding problems after taking over facilities at 30 border posts which were not in a good state and we have to repair them,” he said.

“Staff houses are not in a good shape and workers’ welfare is also a point of concern, but we are working on reviewing this.”

The strike followed the collapse of salary negotiations between BURS management and the Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU).

Workers had demanded a 15% increase, later reducing this to 11% while the management offered six percent and was unwilling to move.

BOPEU and BURS are presently battling the matter out in the Industrial Court, which is due to issue judgement on October 15.

Morris said while the workers had genuine grievances, salaries at the tax agency were competitive when compared to other parastatals.

He said BURS is developing an organisational pay structure review, which is expected to address the situation going forward.

“We want to improve their livelihoods. The strategy and pay structure review focus on developing the human resource. We expect a report on the pay structure to be presented to the board on December 18,” he told PAC members.

The BURS boss also stressed that preliminary results had shown that the industrial action did not have an impact on revenue collection.