Forestry Assistants at the Department of Forestry under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change, have threatened to down tools over their unpaid salaries.
The assistants, 76 in number, were recruited by the ministry in June 2022 to work in Plantations and Extension Planning Areas across the country.
Malawi24 understands that the Department of Forestry is owing these Forestry Assistants 3-month arrears.
It is reported that the officers received their first salary at the Department in October 2022, three months after being recruited and they were assured to get their arrears within a month.
However, the Forestry Assistants have told us that despite several engagements and reminders since that time, the ministry is yet to settle their arrears.
“We are a group of people who were recruited by the Malawi government to work as Forestry Assistants in June 2022, but we worked for three months without getting paid and then we started receiving the salary in October.
“Since that time we have been sending many requests to the Department of Forestry claiming for our arrears but to no avail,” one of the officers told Malawi24.
The anonymous source further revealed that if the ministry does not address their grievances now, they may resort to going on strike to force the authorities to settle the arrears.
Our efforts to hear from the Department of Forestry proved futile as the Principal Human Resources Officer, Innocent Nyirenda, could not pick up our phone calls.
