Govt dismisses TUCTA claims, saying are false

Always the government has to be claimed even if there are no mistakes done as this is normal everywhere. But claimants should g forward their arguments alongside with evidences and not just a matter of uttering without proper explanations so as to avoid any inconveniences that might unnecessarily arise among the people in the country. In Tanzania there had been lots of complaints raised on workers’ remunerations including unpaid salaries and other fringe benefits. But the government has already paid workers more than 70.4bn/- in the 2016/17 financial year as non-salary claims, with another 37.4bn/- paid from July to September, this year. Addressing journalists in Dar es Salaam on Friday, the Director of Information Services and Government Spokesperson, Dr Hassan Abbasi said different claims made by the Trade Union Congress of Tanzania (TUCTA) against President John Magufuli and his governments are false and must be ignored by the public. Dr Abbasi said TUCTA misquoted Dr Magufuli when addressing the 33 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Association of Local Authorities in Tanzania (ALAT), where he refused to increase councillors’ allowances from 350,000/- to 800,000/-, an increase of 150 per cent. The government spokesperson said the President's statement was first taken out of context by Chadema, saying that the information service provided proof that caught them on their lie. "It is dangerous for a trade union of the status of TUCTA to believe false reports being spread on social media by opposition parties.

Director of Information Services and Government Spokesperson, Dr Hassan Abbasi

TUCTA knows the right way to get the correct information from the government, but chose to believe the social media," he explained. He added, "There is nowhere in the President’s speech where he refused to implement yearly salary increment, other than responding to the councilors’ request for increased allowances." Dr Abbasi expounded further that 487.7bn/- has been set aside for public servants who will be promoted following completion of verification of academic certificates in the public sector and another 35.2bn/- has been set aside for salary arrears. “In this first quarter, the government has already paid 531m/-, which includes those promoted and 739.3m/- was paid to 108 retirees, being part of salary arrears,” Dr Abbasi explained. He noted that during the Labour Day celebrations in May, this year, President Magufuli said he’d temporarily halted promotion since the verification exercise was still going on, but promised that promotion will resume soon after its completion. Dr Abbasi stressed that the government will start taking legal action against people spreading false information about the government, for the purpose of misleading the public with intent to cause panic or trying to turn them against the government. He explained that there are various laws including the Media Service Act of 2016 and the Access to Information Act of 2015 which allows the public, including TUCTA, the right to get correct information through official channels.