DPP issues press statement on the civil service strike

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) notes with regret the disjointed and disconnected nature in the way the strike and associated concerns by the Civil Servants have been handled by the PP-run Government. Amidst what they have termed an Economic Recovery plan, we would have thought that Malawi needs a functional Civil Service because it is the vehicle of policy planning and implementation.­

To think that the Civil Service can be on stay away from duty for close to two weeks with no tangible steps taken by the Government to address the genuine issues raised by the Civil Servants smacks of a careless and callous Government, with probably no clue on how to run a Government.

Related to this the DPP also notes with deep concern and regret the misinformation and deliberate miscalculations­ presented by the Minister of Finance on how the wage bill for the civil service would jump from the current figures – MK92billion as we have been made to understand, to the figures he is mentioning i.e. MK276 billion. Any basic mathematician would notice that Government has deliberately chosen to misinform the public because 67%, in broad terms, of MK92 translates to a new wage bill of about MK153.64 billion. We do not understand where the MK276 billion is coming from.

It is good to remember that every Government runs on the sustained trust of the Malawian people. We feel the PP-run Government, by choosing to deliberately misinform Malawians on the issue of the wage bill, is taking the trust of Malawians for granted. We would like to call for a full review of the figures presented and a full Ministerial stamen on the wage bill issues so that there is proper reconciliation between word and reality on the ground.

It is time, for this PP-run Government to fully recognize and own up to the full negative impacts of the monetary and fiscal policies it has, of its own free will and volition, chosen to pursue.

It is important to remember that we have the Malawian people to serve and therefore the choices of Government on economic policies have to match with the needs and aspirations of the people of Malawi.

We would like to call upon the PP-run Government to immediately address the issues that the Civil Servants have raised as well as the issues that the Consumers Association of Malawi raised on 17th January 2012.

We as a Party are on the side of the people on these issues and we will do all in our power to help Malawians hold this Government accountable.