The Dowa District Council has promised to increase salaries for its direct staff by 10 percent.
This is a welcome development to the council’s junior staff who at one time sealed off the District Commissioner’s office with chains and locks to force management to raise their salaries by 20 percent.
Speaking in an interview, Human Resource Committee chairperson councilor Madalo Dzuwa said as part of the ongoing reforms in the Ministry of Local Government and the Department of Human Resources Management and Development (HRMD), councils are to develop own conditions of service.
Dzuwa said other districts within Central East zone such as Kasungu have already increased salaries for their direct staff through donor sponsorship while Dowa has done nothing.
“We are hoping that possibly come January, 2019, this will be implemented,” she said.
She added that under the new arrangement, staff appraisals are supposed to be conducted twice a year in the months of June and December to check on the efficiency of the employees.
“Staff need to be appraised time and again for them to deliver at their workplaces,” said Dzuwa.
At one of the previous full council meeting, Dowa South East parliamentarian Harry Njoka Chipeni, asked the secretariat to reduce the number of its direct staff observing that some do not have job descriptions but are on payroll.
Njoka said the incentives of salary increase should match with workers’ delivery and advised the secretariat to raise salaries only to those who are deserving and not everyone.
