By Fasalie S. Kamara and Kenneth Thompson
Secretary General of the Sierra Leone Health Workers’ Union, Ansu Rashid Kalokoh says Masada cannot take over waste management in Freetown with the current arrangement in place.
He was speaking to Politico during a waste management workers’ protest over payment of three months of backlog salaries.
He said “neither Masada nor the [Freetown City] Council has formally met us to discuss the way forward for the current waste management workers”, adding that there were two options open to the council and Masada.
“They either give the workers appointment letters with effect from the day they were employed or pay them off and give them new appointment letters”, he said.
He claimed that his organisation was not aware of any transition that would allow Masada, with the aid of the council, to take over waste management.
He said the city council should have involved them in the transition process so that they could equally know what package council was prepared to give the workers when they were eventually laid off or whether they wanted the workers to continue with Masada and what the terms of their conditions of service were.
He said that in 2008 they had given council a 21-day strike notice which he said had not yet been exhausted.
“However, according to the industrial labour law, the workers still have the right to exhaust such strike action now when their salary has not been paid”, he said.
Mohamed Kamara, a senior driver at the Freetown Waste Management, said “we have not been paid for three months and we have our own problems. How does council expect us to take care of our own problems if they do not pay us?” he asked.
He said that apart from the fact that they had not been paid for three months, their NASSIT contributions had not been paid for 17 months and that they had been working without medical facility.
“Most importantly nobody has said anything to us since the signing of the contract between city council and Masada regarding our status as workers of the Freetown waste management,” he claimed.
Acting director of the Freetown Waste Management, Kweku Woode, confirmed that they had not been paid for three months. He said that as head he had tried to persuade the workers to wait on council but that it seemed their patience was running out.
He said that as a way to resolve the issue he had written several letters to council, ministry of local government and the strategic policy unit at State House, explaining the issue and asking for their intervention.
Public Relations Officer of FCC, Cyril Mattia, confirmed that council owed the workers for three months but that they were working out something regarding the transition process which would see Masada take over the cleaning of the city on 1 December 2013.
He assured that by end of November they would have paid all workers they owed.
(C) Politico 19/11/13
