Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE management of the Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) has expressed commitments of settling all claims for service providers, salary payments as well as other terminal benefits of former employees.
This was disclosed by one of the Company’s Directors, Mr James Yarah, who told the ‘Daily News’ over the weekend on one of priorities of IPTL Executive Chairman, Mr Harbinder Sethi, who was recently set free by the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam.
He was responding to concerns by some IPTL employees, who wanted to know their fate, including settling the payments as they have not been in touch with the management for a long time. Regarding the matter, Mr Yarah allayed the fears, saying all of them would be paid soon.
“Our Executive Chairman is now out of the prison and has made a commitment that all staff members as well as service providers are his first priority. The process is going on, including the verification or review of the claims and all other internal matters are progressing well,” he said.
Mr Yarah pointed out that there were ongoing activities that aimed at ensuring the remuneration of the employees and service providers are paid as required. He, therefore, appealed to the employees to remain patient as efforts to pay them are ongoing.
“The priority of the Executive Chairman now is employees. I understand they are worried about what will happen after he was released from prison but he has given them priority,” he said.
Mr Yarah recalled that at some point in time some members of staff had approached the Attorney General (AG) to pursue the payments in question. He was, however, quick to point out that Mr Sethi has good intentions, thus the employees should be patient, as it won’t take long.
On his part, the workers’ representative, Mr Hamza Mboga, said that so far they have not received any official information on the matter, as they are demanding their salaries dues before they were terminated.
Commenting on the director’s position, he said that it would be good news for them, if such a commitment would be implemented as soon as possible.
“We are hearing these reports from other people. It will be proper if the management will come forward and assure the employees on the matter, considering we have been outside the factory for a long time and we do not know what is going on,” he said.
Among the 58 employees of IPTL, there are those who agreed to receive redundancy letters, who are claiming to be paid their terminal rights, while there were others, who were retained for plant maintenance.
There is another group made up of 38 employees, who did not receive retrenchment letters but decided to file a labour dispute before the High Court’s Labour Division.
Recently, Sethi was given by the court a conditional discharge of not committing any offence for one year and was required to pay 26.9bn/- as compensation to the government after entering a plea bargaining agreement with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to end the economic case he was facing.
In addition, Seth agreed to deposit the IPTL Power Plant situated at Kunduchi Salasala areas at Tegeta in Kinondoni District as security if he fails to pay the money in question.
He has already paid 200m/- as commitment to settle the compensation ordered, while he is required to pay the remaining amount within 12 months from June 16, this year.
