Public servants cry as IEC pays them P6 000 instead of P9 000

 

Some of the public servants that were engaged by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) as voter registration clerks are shocked and unhappy with the amount of money they have been paid for service rendered.

Registration for the 2024 elections ended on the 3rd of February and last week, clerks got paid. But to their shock, the money is almost P3 000 short.

“The agreement was that we get paid P250 per day worked and on Sunday the money doubles to P500 as it is a rest day in line with labour laws.

“We worked from the 5th of January to 3rd of February which is 26 normal week days and four Sundays. The total for all days is P9 000 but they paid us P6 000,” one of the clerks cried.

When they asked why the money is short, they were told that they have been taxed as per the law.

“How do we get taxed such huge amounts, the tax table is available for guidance, we should have been taxed around P500, it definitely cannot be anything more than P1 000 for a salary of P9 000. IEC has robbed us.”

Reached for comment, IEC spokesperson Osupile Maroba said the aggrieved should engage with paying officers and if not satisfied, go up the hierarchy until their complaints are resolved.

“To say IEC has robbed them is an unfair statement, we cannot really know for sure what has happened, sometimes it can be a miscalculation and sometimes it is the system.

“We are aware of some people who get aggrieved whenever they get taxed when they thought they would be taking all the money home, but the law is there, anybody who gets paid more than P4 000 gets taxed,” he said.

The concerned wondered if perhaps their regular income tax was also included when deducting the tax, saying if that was the case, it would be unfair because they did not get paid the money as a lump sum.

IEC only paid last week while their salaries were received since beginning of the month.

"Our payslips do not include IEC work, which suggests that IEC paid us directly and had to deduct tax from what they were giving us. We demand better explanation," they say.

Giving clarity on tax, Leornard Motlhabi responsible for customer Education at Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) explained that tax is calculated separately.

This means that a payer deducts tax from any payment they are making and in the instance of IEC and government departments, IEC has to deduct tax from payments they are making and also the employer (government) will deduct tax when paying salaries.

There was an uproar when the IEC decided to hire public servants for positions of voter registration clerks with most Batswana accusing IEC of hiring already working people instead of empowering the unemployed members of society.

In defence, IEC Secretary Jefferson Siamisang told The Midweek Sun that they have not completely shunned the youth and the unemployed, saying from the 5 620 registration clerks hired, 50 percent were youth and unemployed and the other 50 percent was public servants.

“We did this as a way of strengthening supervision; we understand that most of the young people are not experienced so pairing them with people who are already trusted with some kind of responsibilities at their workplaces might reduce some of the mistakes encountered in 2018,” Siamisang said at the time.

Asked about the criterion used to hire public servants, Siamisang said they sent out requests to heads of departments to release employees.

“I must emphasise that they will all be paid the same, it is P250 per day and Sunday is rest day, meaning they will get double the daily rate or P500 because we need them to work every day for a full month,” Siamisang had said.