Interns recruited under the K5 billion Graduate Internship Programme have complained of not getting paid.
Malawi Government recruited over 2200 youths in two phases in September and November this year.
The interns were promised a monthly stipend of K80,000 but some interns have not been given this monthly stipend since being recruited.
According to one of the interns, many interns under the first phase only received their stipends for the first month of September.
“In September, all first phase interns were not given monthly stipends but in the month of October my friends were given K160,000 for the month of September and October, while some were just given K80,000 meaning they only received for the month of October only.
“I and other interns received nothing. We went to the ministry of labour to complain and they told us to give them our account numbers and that we will receive our stipends for months we didn’t receive together with November’s salary making it K240,000 but up to day we have not received our stipends,” said the intern .
Another intern of second phase also complained of not receiving her stipend for November and December.
“We are very worried with this, they are not giving us our monthly stipends yet we need money for transport. We are pleading with the Minister of Labour to talk the civil servants working in the Ministry of Labour to take this matter seriously and give us our stipends
Earlier this month, government accused interns absconding work for more than three consecutive days without informing his ministry
The ministry warned that it will terminate contracts of interns who abscond work.
The Graduate Internship Program is being implemented by the Ministry of Labour and places graduates in different ministries and departments for 10 months to gain experience.
