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IPTL sends 26 workers packing
2008-03-06 09:58:25
By Correspondent Gadiosa Lamtey
Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) has terminated the services of 26 of its 70 workers with immediate effect, The Guardian has authoritatively learnt.
The management of the Dar es Salaam-based private company has blamed the matter on what it has described as long-running failure by the government to pay for the electricity the firm has been generating.
It has further defended the off-loading of the workers as part of a strategy to keep afloat by cutting production and running costs following the government’s failure to settle an entire year’s power bill.
The government contracted IPTL, a joint venture between Malaysia’s Mechmar Corporation and Tanzania’s VIP Engineering and Marketing Ltd, to generate emergency power in 1996.
The firm was required to construct a 100-Megawatt power plant as an independent power producer for 20 years under a contract stipulating that the government would pay a monthly 3bn/- in capacity charges.
The termination letters the workers were served with yesterday at the firm`s premises at Tegeta in suburban Dar es Salaam are signed by IPTL plant manager Jaakko Kaihua.
However, the retrenched workers told this paper shortly after they were presented with the letters that the ``cost-cutting strategy`` given by the management as the reason for their laying off was an excuse too lame to convince anyone.
They said in separate interviews that they believed they were victims of the recent announcement by the government instructing all private employers to raise the minimum wage.
Last year the government announced new private sector minimum wages, the lowest being 65,000/- for housemaids and the highest 350,000/- for the mining sector.
Another reason, they said, was a long-standing dispute pitting them against the management over a voluntary contract agreed upon by the two parties and was lined up for conclusion and signing in the middle of this month.
Under the agreement, the company would have raised the minimum wage from 165,000/- to 350,000/-. That would have included transport allowance, leave passage, and a package of other allowances to help the workers attend to various social needs.
The management presented each of the retrenchees with between 400,000/- and 600,000/- and a three-month medical insurance cover, which most of those affected said was too little and did not reflect the value of the service they had rendered to the company.
A trade union leader at the company, Mwinyi Uweje, said it was unfair for the management to pay the retrenches ``such a paltry sum`` after they had served the firm for up to seven years. However, he would not say whether there would be any further action to ensure that justice was done.
Contacted for clarification on retrenchees` claims and complaints, Kaihua and IPTL human resources manager Hilda Makoye, chose to remain tight-lipped.
Energy and Minerals Minister William Ngeleja was not reachable by phone to comment on the IPTL management`s charges that the government had defaulted on the payment of the capacity charges for a year.
The government`s power generation contract with IPTL and several similar ones with other private companies are at the centre of controversy that has raised a nationwide outcry.
This is partly over the requirement that the government pay the firms hefty amounts of money even when they actually do not generate any power.
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