Social services crippled by three-week strike

A three-week long strike by Zambian public sector workers has crippled hundreds of schools and hospitals and slowed the delivery of other key government services in this impoverished southern African country. However, a preoccupation with an unfolding political crisis that could see a parliamentary motion to impeach embattled President Frederick Chiluba being passed appears to have diverted official attention from the resultant social crisis. An estimated 80,000 public servants, including nurses, school teachers and judicial workers went on strike in mid-May to push for a 100 percent wage rise. However, the cash-strapped government, which is faced with donor aid cuts over governance concerns, has said it can only raise wages by 35 percent. The strike, said by unionists to be the worst in post-independence Zambia, has forced hospitals across the country to scale down their operations, in some cases by closing up to half of their admission wards. Most schools in the country have suspended classes on account of the teachers strike, sparking off student riots in several districts. In Lusaka, police even started releasing hundreds of suspects awaiting trial in a bid to decongest cells as support staff in the judicial service persisted with their industrial action, leaving the courts with a growing backlog of cases. “We are left with no choice but to grant most suspects police bonds in order to ease congestion in cells apart from those with serious crimes such as car theft and aggravated robbery,” police spokesman Lemmy Kajoba told reporters. Trade union leaders have also resolved to sabotage next month’s Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit scheduled for Lusaka unless the government bows to their demands. They want the government to redirect the monies earmarked towards hosting the regional conference to hiking workers salaries. “We feel that the government has got its priorities wrong. The resources that should go towards increasing workers wages are being diverted towards projects of a largely prestigious nature, such as the OAU summit,” Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) deputy president Japhet Moonde told IRIN. “We would advise the OAU to start thinking of another venue for the summit, because it will be disastrous if it is held here when nearly all the government functionaries are on strike.” Many of the country’s public servants, including teachers and nurses, are paid less than US $50 per month, putting them below the poverty datum line. “Very few people in the public service can afford two meals a day,” Moonde said. Chiluba’s free market government, which came to power in 1991, promised to improve workers conditions of service after retrenching some 21,000 people under a public service reform programme prescribed by western donors. Social welfare officials say that the adjustment programme, one of the most stringent on the continent, has left most Zambians poorer than before, with an estimated 80 percent living on less than US $1 per day. Some political analysts see the strike as being at least partially fuelled by a growing campaign against Chiluba - a former trade union leader - and his ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). The campaign, which was initially intended to block Chiluba from seeking an unconstitutional third term in presidential elections scheduled for later this year, has intensified in recent weeks, with several of his former cabinet colleagues pushing for his impeachment by parliament.