By Sarah Gwetsani
The Concerned Civil Servants will on Wednesday, 19th March, 2025 takes 20 percent salary hike effective from 1st April, 2025 to Parliament in the demonstrations which will start from Area 18 Roundabout in Red and Black dress code from 12;30 p.m.
The demonstrations failed to take place last week after District Commissioner for Lilongwe Dr. Lawford Palani refused to grant the Concerned Civil Servants permission to march to the Parliament Building on the claims that it is not a registered Union.
Dr. Palani said the registered Unions such as Civil Servants Trade Union (CSTU)), Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) and the Malawi Congress of Trade Union (MCTU) distanced themselves from the Concerned Civil Servants.
Two Union leaders of CSTU and TUM were quoted in the media having said all civil servants in Malawi were satisfied with a 20 percent hike of their salaries effective from 1st April, 2025, the statements angered all civil servants in the country.
The stakeholders meeting in Lilongwe on the demonstrations resolved that the Concerned Civil Servants have organized these demonstrations in their own personal capacity because legally the civil servants are represented by their Unions, CSTU, TUM and MCTU.
The Concerned Civil Servants have been advised to take responsibility for anything that will happen during demonstration especially on issues of security and any damage giving them permission to enter Parliament premises to deliver their petition.
“The office of the District Commissioner in respect of the constitutional rights has given the Concerned Civil Servants a go ahead to proceed with the peaceful demonstrations on Wednesday, 19th March, 2025 starting from 12;30 P.M,” reads the letter signed by Dr. Lawford Palani.
Mrs. Elizabeth Kaliza Banda of Area 51 in Lilongwe, a teacher at one of the primary schools in Lilongwe Urban, has urged all teachers, (both secondary and primary) to patronize the demonstrations to shame their Union leaders who made it possible for the demonstrations not to be held.
Kaliza has also urged teachers to be demonstrating on Wednesday to take it as an opportunity to fire their Union leaders for failing to represent them in good faith as their interests were to serve their own berries rather than those of the teachers.
She said she would have loved if civil servants dissolve CSTU and TUM and let the Concerned Civil Servants be a caretaker committee until elections of the new committees are held for all civil servants to be assured that they have committees to represent them.
“CSTU and TUM leadership have fooled civil servants in Malawi, God will punish you for receiving millions of Kwachas from MCP out of the pain and sufferings of your colleagues in government,” said Kaliza Banda.
