EX EAC staff told to submit claims to employer

DODOMA: PRIME Minister Kassim Majaliwa yesterday instructed former employees who have not been paid their dues after working for the East African Community that collapsed in 19 7 7 to submit their claims to the employer for payment assessment.

He said the assessment exercise will enable the employer to pick names of the former employees who deserve to be paid.

He gave the instruction in Parliament during the Q uestion to Prime Minister session. The Premier was responding to a question from Special Seats MP, Ms Hawa Mwaifungi (Chadema).

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The MP claimed that there were still pensioners of the community who have not received their benefits. She said that for years now the former employees were struggling to get their payments in vain. She asked the government to intervene and see how it could help the former employees.

” The MP has said that there are still other retirees who have been struggling to be paid and because the government is in charge of the rights of everyone who is entitled to be paid, then they should submit their claims to their employer(s) so that an assessment can be made and if their rights exist, they will most probably be paid their dues,” said the Premier.

Mr Majaliwa admitted that there were some Tanzanians who worked for the former EAC and when it broke down, some were not paid their dues.

“We understand that some of Tanzanians were not paid their benefits after the fall of the former East African Community in 19 7 7 , therefore we encourage those who were not paid to submit required documents for assessment as a procedure for getting paid,” he noted.

He said the Prime Minister’ s Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been receiving complaints from such individuals and are working on them by directing them to submit complaints to their former employers. However, he said that according to records of the government, retired employees who submitted their claims and documents have already been paid.

Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr Tulia Ackson asked the government to review the EAC employees list to determine if there are still those who have not been paid.

” Because these questions keep coming back and some of these retirees may already been dead without getting their rights, it is proper to satisfy ourselves that such cases do not exist, because there are also others who believe they are supposed to be paid, but unfortunately they are not eligible for payment because they have already been paid,” he said.

Dr Tulia also wanted the government to take time to look into all the claims so that eventually they can come up with the right conclusion, considering that the community has been dead for many years and the pensioners are old now to start demanding for their rights.