Over 200 families of former British Petroleum (BP) Zambia workers have vowed to camp at the residence of opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema in Lusaka to demand for payment of their benefits.
Lead Plaintiff of the 236 BP Zambia pensioners, Expendito Chipalo says the move has been arrived at due to alleged failure by Mr. Hichilema and company to adhere to their demands.
Speaking at a press briefing in Lusaka yesterday, Mr. Chipalo says the plans to mobilise all the 236 families from across the country to camp at Mr. Hichilema residence have reached at an advanced stage.
ZANIS reports that Mr. Chipalo explained that Mr. Hichilema and company are the main shareholders of Menel Management Services, the company he said was responsible for the workers’ benefits.
He said the former 236 BP Zambia employees, 92 of whom have died, will carry out the exercise within the confines of the law.
And Mr. Chipalo has pleaded with Mr. Hichilema and company to quickly pay them their terminal benefits.
Meanwhile, Mr. Chipalo has argued that the move by the former BP Zambia pensioners’ families to camp at Mr. Hichilema’s residence is not politically inclined but that they were only demanding what was due to them.
The ex-BP workers were retrenched in March 1999.
Efforts to get a comment from Mr. Hichilema through his spokesperson Charles Kakoma and his deputy Cornelius Mweetwa failed as their mobile phones were not reachable.
Why now? Where were they all these years? Police should move in quickly and charge them with criminal trespass. Do they have a court order? It;s understandable that the political stakes are very high this year but political opponents should find a better way to use citizens.
The UP N Down party cadres like campaigning on the lines of HH being a successful businessman and go on to list the number of companies he ‘owns’. Now that there is a dark cloud hanging ‘over Regina Saturnia they want to lecture us on the corporate veil. Mukose!
Good question @judge chikopo but am afraid that is the Zambian way of doing things. Just look at a guy who sued a couple who have run up rental arrears of over 200K over a period of about four years. So they were staying in his house free and he accepted their explanations until something broke. We need to change this attitude of waiting for break point or seeking an opportune time for whatever frivolous reasons. It is a sick Zambian mindset that has caused us to be stuck in mediocrity.
UNO MWAKA VOTE WISE!THE ENTIRE TIME LUNGU HAS BEEN PRESIDENT HE HAS FAILED TO EVEN CLEAN UP UTH! HE WONT EVEN VISIT UTH SO HE CAN SEE FOR HIMSELF HOW BAD THINGS ARE?UNO MWAKA WE WANT CHANGE! REAL CHANGE! IT IS TIME TO VOTE FOR A GOVERNMENT THAT WILL TAKE CARE OF THE PROBLEMS AT UTH.UNO MWAKA KU CLEARNER!!!!!
ITS TIME TO CLEAN UP!!!
PF PANSE!!VIVA CHANGE
SONTAPO HH !!!
The other day HH’s company’s name was Sutarnia Regna, the company that HH has nothing to do with. Today HH has been given Menel Management Services!!
Stop the witch hunt ba-swine. Like it or not HH and UPND will carry the day on 11th August 2016!!
And you LT why do you allow PF to use you letting them paste green, rubbish articles about UPND and GBM on the right side of this page? You will become irrelevant and sink along with them.
Pray law enforcement agencies will be up to the task. These citizens’ sponsors should also mobilise civil servants going without pay to camp at chakolwa’s residence as they demand for their salaries. After all any publicity is good publicity. Just spin it to your advantage.
WOW Zambia in reverse Gear? why being done now? if genuine where have these families been all these years? The lawyer is also stupid? that’s why we have courts than taking law in your own hands. HH those are trespassers to your beautiful property. Let them be arrested.
Please, please, please ba PF- No- Strategy through your police allow these people to camp at HH’s residence even for a whole week. After that they will be chanting Viva HH! Chagwa Must Fall! This will not be because HH has paid them their dues (HH has nothing to do with that company) but because they will have understood PF desperation due to no vision, no manifesto.
Why camp at his house, and not at office?
@1 LOGIC WILL TELL YOU THAT THIS IS THE RIGHT TIME TO DEMAND DUES DUE TO YOU AT THE TIME WHEN POLITICIANS HAVE THEIR POCKETS FULL OF CASH TO JUST DISH OUT AROUND. I MAY BE WRONG BUT, THIS IS ALSO THE TIME ANGLO AMERICAN , THE ONES HH HAS PROMISED MINES DONATE/LENDS MONEY TO UPND EXPECTING HIM TO WIN ELECTIONS. SO CASH IS FLYING ALLOVER THE PLACE, NOW.
BP stands for “British Petroleum” in case PF cadres didn’t know. This company went under all over the world after the Oil Spill offthe the US coast. In some countries BP was BOUGHT by PUMA. I would advise these PF cadres to approach PUMA if indeed they are owed any money, otherwise they should think of visiting London for their pennies.
These Pathetic Failures are wasting their time turning a commercial dispute into a political one. Instead of pursuing BP and/or Puma to pay up the difference in their terminal benefits that the courts have determined, they are pursuing a person who does not control either company. Even if Saturnia Regna was owned by HH, the liability does not belong to the pension fund managers. The liability belongs to their former employers, BP and/or Puma who bought BP’s business in Zambia. These retirees are wasting months of their lives barking up a wrong tree. Don’t say you were not advised when you never get paid by BP and Puma because you are not pursuing them through bailiffs.
Ignorance you don’t even understand how a pension scheme operates. Better zip up your mouth than expose your ignorance
YOU FAIL TO PAY HOUSE RENT FOR YOUR VICE,236 WORKERS YOU THINK YOU CAN PAY ZED WORKERS,FEED 15 000 000?
You PFool, do you think Chakolwa is feeding you? How? Chakolwa is in it for himself and his family alone. That’s why I am blogging in darkness. Another 10 hour load shedding. Chakolwa is the most incompetent President Zambia will ever have.
#ChagwaMustFall
#PFmustGo
#PF Zwaa!
Say what you want. we are still voting for UPND and HH. The whole PF can camp at HH house. It wont sway my voting preference
Another day, another powercut. What an absolutely useless PFoolish govt and incompetent President that do not ensure that people have electricity every day to run their homes and businesses? Instead they concentrate their energies, no vernom, on HH! Where has the power from Itezhitezhi and Maamba gone? Why are we still having 10 hour powercuts in May when Zimbabwe stopped theirs in December last year and South Africa in August? What is global about poverty and mediocrity?
#Sonta epo wasangile malaiti
#PF Zwaa!
#ChagwaMustFall
#PFmustGo
Not a cheap logistical undertaking, mobilising 200 families for a camping expedition, these retirees must have money t burn..
this story is half baked. the lack of investigative reporting in the public and social media is worrying. The reporters should have told us who the shareholders in this company (the company these guys worked for) were? what was the role of the named company under HH; what was the judgement in this case as it seems these guys have been to court? etc
This story makes no sense at all. Mr Chipalo, if you have a court judgement, why don’t you go to the bailiffs to effect your judgement? Go and seize Saturnia Regna’s assets! Surely these are not at HH’s residence!
Unless this is about politics, since we have seen you with Edgar Chagwa Lungu? Has ECL & PF sunk so low?
Does it mean that even use former workers of UBZ who never got our benefits should go and camp at State House?
No, it means, you should find Edgar’s personal house in Chawama and go and camp there! So start mobilizing yourselves. Since Kambwili is the facilitator of this nonsense, he will find you a spokesman and fund the whole nonsense using money from transporting material stolen from the Black Mountain.
H BULAYA – Yeah, if Edgar is/was a shareholder of UBZ or benefited from the privatization of UBZ.
PF desperation is now reaching new high levels. There is no way on earth, HH, as individual can be responsible for the those pension obligations just like Edgar Lungu cannot be responsible, as an individual, for the outstanding NAPSA and Public Pension payments to ZAWA employees, Zamtel employees and all these parastatals that have not yet paid their pensioners in full! This is cheap and stupid politics by Kambwili and his friends.
@ K Bwalya you are right. Kambwili and PF will fail on this just like they failed on accussing HH of being responsible for Zambian Privatization when it was the MMD Government and Sata and his friends who were making the decisions! This is really cheap politics! HH must sue these chaps! PF are feeling the pressure from HH. They know even rigging wont help them this time around.
This Is another PF tactic to distract HH from campaigning. They tried to do the same thing with another Pension Fund and failed and this time they will fail again. Such employment benefits issues are dealt with by the Employer and the Pension Fund concerned. Shareholders do not deal with such matters. When ECL and PF saw the numbers at HH’s Luapula rally they got scared and they are panicking hence this knee-jerk reaction to a purely Labour issue.Civil Servant Pensioners who have not been paid their Pensions for years and must now go and camp at State House where Lungu lives until they are paid their dues. PF has no Manifesto and campaign messages to the voters. ECL and PF want to prevent HH and UPND from conveying their 10 Point Plan Manifesto to the voters. They are desperate and…
HH and his followers are all criminals, the money he stole from privatization of mines and industries went to head and will never change. Let the burger retain what he has stolen from the Zambian people. As copperbelt people, we all know that this mess we are in today is largely because of this lazo called HH who sent our fathers, uncles and mothers to early graves and he even has the guts to think we can give him our vote?
The facts are there, HH caused the sufferings that most miners are today going through on the copperbelt and let it be clear to him and those cheating themselves, will NEVER EVER VOTE FOR HH ON THE COPPERBELT.
Edgar Lungu and PF have started correcting the mess created by HH and his selfish cartel and to this effect, we are voting massively for President Lungu and PF…
@Over The Horizon
And who do you think you are fooling but yourself?
It is a historical fact that HH did NOT privatize any mine let alone offer any valuation services for the Francis Kaunda led GRZ ZCCM privatization team. Go to ZPA and check.
HH did render services to ZANACO for the BINANI debt over the Luanshya mine.
Incidentally it is Lungu was disbarred for stealing a clients money by LAZ. Check at LAZ.
Vote for Lungu and the majority of the suffering Kopala will vote for Economic Liberation led by HH.
Ati Ediga lungu and PF have started correcting the mess…..
Yes like how kambwili went on TV and promised not a single miners job will be lost….
Over The Horizon. I have an aunt who worked for ZCCM she narrated stories to us how most of the former ZCCM employees used to steal from those mines. Thats why Chiluba and his cabinet decided to sale the mines. Your fathers, uncles and mothers wound have not gone early to the graves if they were very bad stewards. There is a bad work culture in Zambia. Even if H.H wins this culture will not end today. We need a person like General Miyanda who is God fearing to run this country.
@9 “Over The Horizon”. Which “facts are there..”? Let us not be deliberately ignorant. HH must be causing you sleepless nights becoz you are seeking to blame him for everything that has gone wrong!
I am in Kitwe and Iam voting for him so that he can come and clean up the mess that PF has caused!
@ OVER THE HORIZON
YOU ARE INDEED BELOW THE HORIZON. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT. I SUGGEST YOUR EDUCATE YOURSELF WITH THE PRIVATIZATION PROCESS IN ZAMBIA. FOR YOUR INFORMATION ALL DECISIONS ON THE SALE OF PRIVATIZED COMPANIES WERE APPROVED BY CABINETAND HH WAS NEVER IN CABINET
Heavenly Father, I bow in worship and praise before you. I cover myself and HH’s campaign with the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as our protection. I surrender myself and HH completely and unreservedly in every area of our life to you. We take a stand against all the workings of Satan that would hinder HH’s campaign. We address ourself only to the true and living God and refuse any involvement of Satan in this prayer for HH’s campaign. Satan, I command you, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to leave HH’s campaign with all your demons. No weapon fashioned against HH’s campaign prospers. I bring the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ between the adversaries and HH’s campaign. I plead the blood of Jesus over HH’s campaign. Satan the blood of Jesus is against you.
this is a right time to catch a politician dubbed major shareholder, during political campaigns politicians become so responsive and humble, I believe HH will quickly solve the matter now
“Efforts to get a comment from Mr. Hichilema through his spokesperson Charles Kakoma and his deputy Cornelius Mweetwa failed as their mobile phones were not reachable” …
If matter is not politically inclined as Chipalo says, why attempt to get in touch with HH through his party structures and not the so called companies where he holds shares?
Vote wisELy this August, not foolisHHly!!!
It sounds like this gathering is likely to cause a breach of the peace!
Civil servants wake up from your docility! Edgar is failing to pay you on time a few months before the elections, what will happen if you allow him another mandate! This is the time that he is supposed to listen to you attentively! You will have no say over your rights once he bounces back. One day he will just wake up and tell you that, you l get half salaries and knowing your docility you will complain for a day and then it will be business as usual! TRIBE can’t feed you. Forget about ama politics ya ci MWELA, that’s being childish and unreasonable!
DIRTY WAY OF CAMPAIGNING, IF ZP GIVES THEM A PASS THEN THINGS ARE SERIOUSLY WRONG IN THIS COUNTRY. WHERE WERE THEY 20 YEARS AGO? IF THEY ARE GIVEN A PASS, THEN ALL CIVIL SERVANTS IN THE COUNTRY SHOULD CAMP AT STATE HOUSE FOR THEIR SALARIES AS WELL.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS: Every spirit of jealousy, tribalism, dupery, calculated deception, wickedness working against HH’s campaign breakthrough, collide with the rock of ages now. Lord Jesus, by Your Blood, I make it impossible for the enemy to use what he sees about HH – against HH’s campaign, NOW. Every demonic mirror monitoring HH’s campaign: BE DESTROYED NOW. Lord Jesus, by Your Blood, Your thunder and lightning destroys every star gazer’s crystal ball monitoring HH’s campaign breakthrough NOW. Psalm 7:1 – O LORD my God, in You does HH put my his trust; save HH from all that persecute him, and deliver him. I decree that HH is saved and delivered from all persecutors. Psalm 7:2 – I decree the Fire of God falls and roasts every roaring lion sent to rend HH’s campaign to pieces…
Psalm 7:2 – I decree the Fire of God falls and roasts every roaring lion sent to rend HH’s campaign to pieces. Psalm 7:6 – The Lord’s judgments are pronounced and established against the rage of HH’s campaign, NOW. Psalm 7:9 – I decree that all operations of the wicked against HH’s campaign come to an end, NOW. Psalm 7:10 – God defend, save and prosper HH’s campaign. Psalm 7:11 – God Your anger is directed daily towards those that are incensed against HH’s campaign. Psalm 7:12 – In the name of Jesus, every stubborn evil force that refuses to turn away from HH, receives the sword and arrows of the Lord, now. Psalm 7:13 – God’s instruments of death and arrows of destruction continually operate against all HH’s campaign unrepentant enemies. Psalm 7:15 – I decree that all HH’s…
Psalm 7:12 – In the name of Jesus, every stubborn evil force that refuses to turn away from HH, receives the sword and arrows of the Lord, now. Psalm 7:13 – God’s instruments of death and arrows of destruction continually operate against all HH’s campaign unrepentant enemies. Psalm 7:15 – I decree that all HH’s campaign enemies fall now into the pits they have dug for HH. Psalm 7:16 – After the order of Haman, every mischief and violent dealing BACKFIRES on HH’s campaign enemies, NOW.
Idddiots! Have u seen Civil servants lining up at Edgar’s house in Chawama to ask for their pensions,let alone salalries?
Nonsense!
continuation:
PF is on its knees. Bwezani is finishing PF. PF will suffer defeat because of Mr Bwezani Banda. The old man is suppose to be a source of wisdom but he is now a source of confusions hence people are leaving PF. This is exactly what he did to MMD AND hence he conceded defeat.
Some political parties wanted to use the tribal tag in order to create a bad atmosphere between the bembas and the tongas. These two tribes have no basis to remain permanent enemies which their common enemy is capitalising on to achieve political ambitions. Lets show the people preaching tribalism that their tactics to divide and rule will not work on 11/08/2016.
This is politically motivated. I understand the pain they going through, but have you ever seen workers lining up at the general manager/CEO house when they are not paid their dues? Govt workers, do they go State house??? No!!!
The name of the company also sounds like SATAN but written silently as surtan.even his compain money is not enjoyable,I ve never enjoyed his money.what type of money is that?when you get money from him is like Satan buying you, even if you work for it.
For those constructing houses to live in please consider planting 4 trees of suitable citrus fruits as a food security measure at house hold level. Harvesting may take time but its worthy to do it.
Shocked that the company has changed names…looks like Mr Chipalo is not one of the retirees,because he would have known the correct pension scheme he was dealing with. It looks like a crime to have a bit of money in Zambia…will vote for the rich man this time around…one to be in control…aba bambi kuwaya waya fye
Simply go and talk to Mr Chipalo for facts or lies then we can comment
People who keep accusing HH of stealing money from Privatisation of Mines should report him to the Police and get him arrested. Better still these mines were govt owned so Lungu should get HH prosecuted and take him out of the Presidential Race. All these accusations are baseless and politically motivated. Period.
Lungu should just renationalisation the mines and tell the investors to go to HH’s mansion to get their money back. This is the way Sata dealt with the Libyan LapGreen over Zamtel. PF is a corrupt, chaotic and incompetent bunch of thieves who know nothing about running a country.
I wonder why he used those inanimate cranes on this immaculate lawns instead of real ones. I am sure he can afford them. At state House there are live peacocks..! Oh, and monkeys too…
Are the company offices closed why can’t they camp there. I advise UPND cadres to meet them at HHs office. 200 people at his house is a threat to not only his security but that of the family. Who is giving them the permit for such.
Meet them at his house not office
What a failed government indeed.