Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government has directed the Director of Uvinza District Council to allocate funds from local revenue to pay the debts of servants who were transferred from Kigoma District Council to the council.
Deputy Minister of State in the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Government) Festo Ndugange gave such directives before the National Assembly when responding to a question by Nashon Bidyanguze (Kigoma South-CCM).
The lawmaker had asked when such staff transferred to Uvinza Council from Kigoma Rural Council would be paid their dues.
Dr Ndugange said that Uvinza District Council has 99 employees who are eligible to be paid following the transfer from Kigoma District Council to Uvinza District Council in the financial year 2013/14.
According to the deputy minister, an amount of 319.89m/- is required to pay the debts.
He said that the Uvinza District Council was supposed to set aside money from its local revenue to settle the debts in question, something which it has not been done for about eight years.
In a supplementary question, the MP explained that the minister does not see that in one way or another was causing the employees to work in difficult conditions as long time has passed, considering that such council was established in 2013 and that some of the employees have already retired.
He, therefore, wanted to know the government’s commitment in that when such employees would be paid their money.
In his response, the Deputy Minister explained that the government is aware of the existence of debts for such staff in Uvinza Council. He said that the government has continued to allocate funds in the budget to ensure the debts are paid.
The deputy minister noted, however, that such debts are usually repaid using other expenditures as well as local revenue funds.
Therefore he directed the council directors in the local government authorities and, in that context the director of the Uvinza council should start allocating funds to pay the debts of the employees in installments so that they could work with incentives.
The deputy minister also said that the government was going on with the exercise of verifying the debt and would allocate funds to ensure that the employees are paid their dues.
