MRA recalls fired staff

Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) has called back its former employees including the 215 who were controversially fired in July 2010.

The aggrieved ex-employees petitioned President Joyce Banda on April, 30 this year asking her to have their firing reversed, while there are court cases where they are demanding payment of terminal benefits.

In their petition, the retrenched employees claimed that their firing was based on nepotistic and political grounds which are against rules of natural justice.

However, three months after the petition, the authority has released adverts calling all its former employees who left the company since July on grounds other than dismissal or termination to return to the company.

“The Malawi Revenue Authority an organisation entrusted with the assessment, collection, and accounting for tax revenues for the Malawi Government is inviting applications of interest from all its former employees across the board who left the Authority since July, 2010 for reasons other than dismissal or termination and are interested in rejoining it to apply,” reads the advertisement.

The advert calls on all ex-employees who are willing to return to the company to state previous positions held, former department and reason they left the authority.

Asked whether the authority is acting under pressure from government after the petitions, MRA Public Relations Officer Steve Kapoloma said the exercise is just a normal recruitment process.

“The recruitment is part and parcel of recruiting people to beef up MRA. It is based on our need. It has nothing to do with anything else,” Kapoloma said.

He further said they have opted for former employees because they are already well versed with the operations of the Authority rather than recruiting people who will need several months to start understanding tax collection issues.

“What we are saying is that if there are employees out there, who have knowledge about the dealings of collecting taxes, should show interest because the Authority needs more staff.

“It takes not less than six months for someone to understand and be able to collect tax. We need people who come and hit the ground and start running immediately. We give priority to those who have experience and then give chances to others,” he said.

A representative of the 215 ex MRA employees who are battling the Authority in court, Good Chakaka Nyirenda, said they are willing to return to work, but they will not drop court cases until it is clarified whether they will be paid salaries since they were fired.

“We have shown interest to go back to work but we have also consulted our lawyers on the court case. We want to make sure that they will pay us all the money they owe us since they fired us,” Nyirenda said.