Some of the workers who migrated from the Christian Health Association of Malawi (Cham) establishment to the government payroll system Tuesday stormed Ministry of Health at Capital Hill in Lilongwe, where they demanded salary arrears.
In April last year, government announced that healthcare workers in Cham facilities would be on its payroll to lessen challenges they were facing to access their salaries.
But Tuesday, 35 representatives of the 200 workers stormed Capital Hill, where they demanded salary arrears.
One of the leaders, Ted Kazembe, who is working at St Mary’s Hospital in Mangochi, said all is not well as government owes them salary arrears for a year.
“We have been sent by over 200 Cham workers who have not been paid their arrears since April last year, when we migrated to the government system. Some are being paid while others are not. We have tried in vain to contact the authorities,” Kazembe
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A nurse at one of the Cham facilities said anonymously that it is now a year without the disbursement of salary arrears and that they were at the Ministry of Health headquarters to demand their pay.
“This has affected us because, during the months we have not been paid, we accumulated loans we are yet to repay.
“We have been writing Capital Hill and Cham about the anomalies, to no avail,” the nurse said
Among other things, the group claims that some of the workers are being underpaid.
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For instance, those in Grade K are getting salaries that were meant for those in Grade M.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe has said the ministry is aware of the issue and that they are working on it.
The workers are from Cham facilities, and Cham was supposed to organise their salaries and arrears and send them [salaries and arrears] to the Ministry of Health so that the workers should be paid on time.
Chikumbe said the ministry would have discussions with the workers.
