By Ntsebeng Motsoeli
MASERU — About 30 casual immigration employees yesterday met Home Affairs Minister Joang Molapo over unpaid salaries and to discuss their contracts.
The employees said they received a letter yesterday that announced they were not to report back to work starting from October 1.
They wanted Molapo to authenticate the communication which they said was not addressed and not signed.
The casual workers also wanted Molapo to tell them when they would be paid their overdue salaries.
They explained they had not been paid their monthly salaries since April.
“We were employed to work for the months of December and January. But our contracts were prolonged until further notice because there was shortage of staff. We were surprised when we did not get our salaries in April. We have not been paid until today,” one of the employees who asked not to be named said.
“The officers who came to deliver the letter said our contracts were terminated immediately and that we would be called about our unpaid salaries,” said the employee.
In an interview yesterday, the Minister Molapo said there could have been a miscommunication between the employees and the senior officers who delivered the termination letters.
Molapo further explained his ministry was also making a plan to absorb the employees in the Nation Identity Civilian Registration (NICR) project.
“They will meet the human resource manager and the principal secretary from the ministry today (Thursday) to discuss individual situations and calculate the amount of money that each person is owed,” Molapo said, adding there were internal problems that had caused the ministry to fail to pay the casual workers.
He said the ministry was still in a process of finding the money to pay the overdue salaries.
“The ministry is working on a solution to ensure payment of the salaries.”
