Union challenges wasteful spending at Phikwe council

CALISTUS KOLANTSHO
Correspondent | Friday May 7, 2010 00:00

The branch chairperson, John Morobolo, told Mmegi in an interview this week that the council management has been conducting workshops in the local hotels but at the end, they do not give feed back to their juniors.

He said this is a bad practice because it seems like the top brass is organising such workshops to enjoy themselves rather than coming up with resolutions that will benefit the local authority.

'They go for retreats at Zanzibar but when they get back we are not given any report. They should be spending that money to offer new employees training in customer service.

They must be taken on induction training but that is not happening,' he lashed out. He said that recently the council management held a workshop on strategic planning but the council employees were not told anything about the outcome of the workshop.

Morobolo vowed that they are not going to let anything go unchallenged at the council and they will make sure that the management is held accountable. He observed that the local authority was not cooperating with trade unions.

He said that the trade union would take action against people who work against the mandate of the council. He mentioned that they have realised that there are some supervisors who oppress their juniors and they are always threatening to fire them. 

He stated that such threats affect their productivity and that is unacceptable.

The trade unionist said council employees who should have been promoted in accordance with a directive from the Ministry of Local Government have not been promoted.

'Some of the officers who have been promoted did not deserve it because they were unqualified,' said Morobolo.The union has taken its complaints to the management and they have been promised that they will get a response today.

Meanwhile, Morobolo revealed that after being declared the best BLLAWU branch, the union asked them to identify an underprivileged child that they could sponsor for tertiary education.

He explained that they have identified an orphan that they will be sponsoring to do a degree in human resources at ABM University.

He said the trade union is also working hard to identify a plot at the Selebi Phikwe industrial site where they intend to build a regional headquarters, a guesthouse and a recreational pub.

Selebi Phikwe Town Council public relations officer, Ogomoditse Gaokgethelwe, said the management is discussing the issues raised by BLLAWU.

Gaokgethelwe stated that Morobolo's attack on the management came as a shock to them because they have been updating him all the time.

'All the concerns that the trade union is raising are being dealt with.

It is surprising that they are now complaining though we are always updating them,' said Gaokgethelwe.