“We’ve no money to pay UNIMA striking staff,” says government.

UNIMA striking staff should just return to their duties, government says, and wait for January.

According to spokesperson in the Ministry of Education, Rebecca Phwitiko, as it stands now the government does not have the money needed by the University staff which is amounting to MK800 million which was promised to them last year in an agreement that saw the lecturers going back to class.

Phwitiko said that the staff of the University should, in the meantime, be contented with what the government already gave them on the agreed hike in July last year.

“As it stands now, the next salary increment that the staff will get is coming in January 2014. They should wait for that and get back to work,” Phwitiko has been quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the staff at the University has said that they are not going back to work until their demands are met.

The situation has gotten complicated especially in the wake of reports that some civil servants at the Capitol Hill played with money in such large sums as MK 1 billion while the government is claiming that it has no MK 800 million to effect the hike.