By Blessings Simbowe
The appointment of the new Labour Minister Peter Dimba MP, and new Trade Minister, who is the predecessor to Dimba, Eng Vitumbiko Mumba, has left many speculating why these two explosives were never appointed as cabinet ministers in the first place. While Chakwera’s adminstration has been marred by nepotism, lazy incompetent cabinet ministers, and indecision by Chakwera himself, just like the maphia styled failed DPP regime, the new Labour Minister has proven Malawi’s last hope still remains Chakwera. This week has ended with Dimba closing Central Poultry (Dudu) for breach of labour laws while Mumba closes Chipiku for hoarding sugar.
Many have likened the working style of the two new ministers to the revolutionary hard to the teeth Timothy Mtambo’s whom the nation still wonders why he was mercilessly kicked out of Chakwera’s adminstration, while leaving a bunch of clueless ministers like Chimwendo Banda, Nsungama, Mulusu, Kandodo, Kazako, Uchizi Mkandawire, Gwengwe, Kawale, Msukwa, Hara just to mention a few.
Dimba currently also serves as Chair person for the Legal Committee of Parliament, which saw him resign at some point for disagreeing with Chakwera on the handling of Martha Chizuma the then ACB Director and how the corruption fight was wrongly going. Dimba proved to the nation that he is a no nonsense kind of politician who wastes no time to mere rhetoric.
When Dimba was asked how he intends to deliver in only under three to four months remaining, this was his response:
“Change starts with one person. I promise you that labour issues in Malawi will never be the same again because they are in the right hands now. What do you mean I have only three months when Chakwera is proceeding to 2030? I have come to turn the tables the right side up! Look at what I have achieved in under only one day and tell me if you doubt that three months is quite a long time for a minister of my calibre”
My 3rd day in office ended at 10 pm with a courtesy call over dinner by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Regional Director, Mr Chibebe who flew from Lusaka, his base to congratulate me on my appointment and reassure us of ILO’s commitment to continued closer cooperation with Our Ministry.
Earlier in the morning, I had a meeting at BICC with Tshamiso, a South African Trust that was established for the settlement of compensations to Ex-Miners who were exposed to health hazards as they worked in the gold mines.As of 1970, Malawi had about 129,000 miners in RSA and the numbers began to dwindle after the plane carrying Malawians crushed in Francis Town, Botswana and killed 74 passengers in 1974. We’ve agreed to expedite the process of identifying the illegible Malawian Ex-Miners so they could benefit from the Trust ASAP.
Over lunch, it was time to visit the Shop workers in Bwalolanjovu and Malangalanga right in their backyard at Lilongwe Community Ground and hear for myself the horrible working conditions they are subjected to by their masters most of whom are Malawians of Indian origin, Chinese and Nigerians.The breach of labour laws and rights is deplorable.They are working like slaves in their own land.The unfairly low wages, the lack of overtime allowances, the lack of PPEs (for cement and steel handlers) the poor occupational safety and healthy standards, the lack of holidays, the unfair treatment, the continuous temporary employment to circumvent pension, the unfair dismissals..etc is tantamount modern day slavery and must stop.I intend to convene another meeting with their (Slave) Masters and enlighten them on the labour laws and their workers’ rights which they break with impunity before stiff punishment (that would include prohibition order/closure and deportations) is meted out on some of them.The kind of treatment they give to these workers can never be tolerated in New Delhi and Beijing and must never be tolerated in Lilongwe, Blantyre or Mzuzu.
At 4 pm, it was time to pay a surprise inspection visit at Central Poultry (AKa Dudu).What I saw here was not just modern day slavery but imprisonment and the response we received from the enslaved workers as we began to hear their grievances was like in Rambo films when Silvester Stallone would come to free hostages.We saw the countenance of visibly burdened workers brightening up as I began to assure them of Govt’s commitment to protect them from abuse.They were so overjoyed that they kept chanting hopeful songs as we moved from section to section.What we saw at ‘Dudu’ was ‘too much’.The breach of the labour laws and workers rights was so grave that we could not allow them to operate for another hour hence we issued a prohibition order to stop their operations until they fix the issues.
From Falls, we went to Njewa (at around 7 pm) to reopen two companies, PlasticMax and Hongsheng that were closed for breaching labour laws and workers rights but have since fixed the issues for which a prohibition order was issued.
How do you intend to sustain these positive developments in the Labour Ministry?
My ministry has well established Acts of Parliament, policies, procedures and the Labour laws themselves. My mandate is to ensure implementation and there is a well established structure at Capitol Hill, in every District council, City assemblies and Municipalities across the country to ensure every rule is followed to the book. The Courts, Police, MRA, Immigration just to mention a few are also our major stakeholders in ensuring labour issues are efficiently handoed. I will grab every labour issue by the collar, and trust you me, the good times for the employer and the worker have arrived.
