RETIREMENT AGE: A CONSTITUTIONAL AND NOT POLITICAL ISSUE
Media statement
Sometimes it is just better to just keep quiet than exposing your hate in public.
The Patriotic front government was in power for a good number of years meaning that they do understand issues of civil service recruitment and retirement age in the civil service. Today they want to mislead the nation.
According to the laws of Zambia, a civil servant is supposed to retire at 55 years and he must have served for at least 20 years for him to qualify for his full package.
During pf regime, qualified people who hold different qualifications were not employed by government making them to grow old before they test a government job.
The new Dawn government has come up with a strategy of employing more citizens starting with teachers and nurses. But because of the law, all those who are about 44 years upwards are not going to be employed because by the time they reach 55 years they would have served only 11 years meaning that they won’t qualify to get their full package.
Today we hear pf pointing fingers at UPND government. Why didn’t they employ these graduates when they were young for them to point at UPND of leaving citizens out.
UPND government is seriously looking into issues of employing citizens before they become very old such that they don’t qualify for pession but pf never cared about this one.
It is therefore not right to condemn UPND government over this issue because it is constitutional. The government of his Excellency President Hakainde Hichilema is committed to employing citizens within the confines of the law and not outside the law the way pf used to do it.
We as youths from southern Province wish to ask pf to shut their mouths up because they failed to create job opportunities to the young ones. They concentrated more on bye elections and brutalizing citizens for political millage instead of making sure that citizens get jobs.
Leave UPND government out of problems which you created as pf. UPND government will never work outside the constitution. As a party we are joining President Hakainde Hichilema and his government for working hard day and night to see to it that citizens have jobs in this nation.
Issued by
Lloyd Siambeta
Southern Province
UPND Youth Information and Publicity Secretary (IPS)