NDC leader Chishimba Kambwili says government should stop being selfish and have mercy on the suffering masses by giving public service workers salaries that they can survive on.

And Kambwili says there is too much corruption in the employment of teachers as people are paying as much as K10,000 to get employed.

Meanwhile, Choma UPND member of parliament Cornelius Mweetwa has observed that PF cadres have become stronger than civil servants.

Debating Head 27 – Public Service Management Division (PSMD) in Parliament, Wednesday, Kambwili noted that PSMD was responsible for negotiating salaries for public service workers.

He however questioned whether PSMD and government were being fair to civil servants and public workers by giving them meagre salaries.

“It is interesting to note that this department we are discussing today is responsible for negotiating salaries for public service workers. And the question I would ask all those in that department and our colleagues on the right, ‘are you really being fair to the salaries being paid to the civil servants and public workers?’ And if by some coincidence, your salaries were changed, you start earning a salary of a teacher and a teacher starts earning your salaries, how would you feel? As you have come here, you are with drivers who are driving you, are you worried whether they are able to manage three meals per day? And some of you are so bad hearted that you don’t even invite your drivers for lunch and yet you know that these are human beings that also deserve to live better,” Kambwili said.

Kambwili urged government to think of public workers come 2019 saying leadership was about uplifting the living standards of the people, not caring about one’s pockets.

“Leadership is about uplifting the living standards of our people, not caring about your pockets. Please, 2019 think of the public workers. I know that you can do it and it can be done but mufulo fye mwakwata (you are just sadists). You are doing it deliberately,” he said.

Kambwili urged government to give public service workers salaries that they could survive on.

“It has been done before, from K700 lowest by the late President Micheal Sata to K3,000 lowest. But what we have seen of late, five percent increment, 6.2 percent, come on! Even those who are negotiating, you must have a heart for the people. As you go for the 2019, look at the salaries of the public service workers in view of the fact that this government has brought in so many taxes to the extent that all the money that President Micheal Sata the late gave the civil servants has been diluted. Today its like the civil servants are earning K0. Please lets have mercy, lets feel pity for the suffering masses and not to be selfish and only advance our personal gains,” he said.

And Kambwili observed that there was too much corruption in the employment of teachers as people were paying as much as K10,000 to get employed.

“I’m told, this department (PSMD) facilitates employment and redeployment in the civil service. There is too much corruption in the employment, particularly teachers. People are paying as much as K10,000 to be employed as a teacher and let us not pretend that we don’t know these things. My nephew came to me and said that ‘I need K10,000 for employment’, I told him ‘you can go to hell because I will not do that’. But how many of the people are paying K10,000 to be employed as teachers? So can we sort out this corruption in the employment of teachers,” he said.

Debating the same Head, Choma UPND member of parliament Cornelius Mweetwa observed that PF cadres had become stronger than civil servants.

“Not too long ago, a Permanent Secretary for Northern Province (Elias Kamanga) purportedly disciplined his deputy and recordings are in public domain where calls where being made to the Permanent Secretary PSMD to apologise to PF cadres so that they can push in a word. This is a civil service we now have under PF where cadres have become stronger than professionals. PF cadres have become stronger than civil servants under PF, no wonder sometimes certain decisions are made which are bad,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mweetwa charged that PF was no longer a credible government one could look up to deliver through PSMD and the civil service as they were a group of political con men who wanted to continue to hold on to power at all costs.

“PF is mismanaging the civil service, not because they are deliberate but because they lack capacity. In fact they are no longer in the true sense, a credible government one should look up to deliver through PSMD and the civil service, they are just a group of political con men who want to continue to hold on to power at all costs,” he said before he was guided to withdraw the word ‘con men’.

He added that PSMD should know that they had a greater task than “the incompetent, inept and incapable PF which was an accident to the people of Zambia.”