Mr Sikanyika said the local authority currently had no financial muscle to pay the affected workers.
In an interview in Livingstone, Mr Sikanyika said that the council had also decided to move in tandem with the new labour laws that sought to abolish casualisation.
“You may know that for a long time, we have been working with casual workers. I am sure you are also aware that we have had a challenge in terms of paying these people (causal workers) and now with the new labour law that has come into effect that abolishes casualisation.
“As a local authority, we needed to uphold that law and so we had to get rid of some of the casuals that we felt could be replaced by employees from division four,”Mr Sikanyika said.
Division one to three are employees employed under the Local Government Service Commission and division four are employees employed by the council and that’s the lowest grade.
He said Livingstone City Council had a total of 241 casual workers but would only be able to retain 41 from the total number.
“We had 241 casual workers all together who were spread in various departments.
“We are aware that the decision taken will have a negative effect on the lives of the laid off workers, who used to get an income from the council but the decision was just inevitable,” he said.
Mr Sikanyika however dispelled public assertions that the laying off of the causal workers would paralyse the operations of the local authority in the tourist capital of Zambia.
“The provision of quality service to the city of Livingstone in terms of keeping our city clean will not be affected,” he added.
It has began. Life under pf. With a vision less president who would rather travel to Newyork than attend to issues at home , this shouldn’t surprise us. Meanwhile I am on holiday in ibiza while the same pf voters are wallowing in their own vomit
This is part of the PF electoral fraud. Why wait until Chakolwa’s inauguration to lay off workers? Is this punishment for Livingstone voters who rejected Chakolwa and his lies?
Livingstone is a UPND controlled Council do not blame government. Such decisions are by the Council and the party from which councilors come from. next problem please..
Well done for the great work PF’s Livingstone council for the effective laying off the casual workers.
Despite being sad to them and families, its a good riddance for those who voted for the Lungu visionless leadership. Quantitatively, its hypotheses is that, the 200 whose jobs have been omitted presumably have 5 children at home, thus approximately 1,000 innocent citizens sent into absolute perfection of poverty. This is all about poor reasoning to which PF adhere to, economic growth in poverty. Many more to go, IMF on the door and windows, watching out the introduction of PF incompetence. Next! Kambwili, oh sorry, yes Kambwili and others, imagine crucially it was your own children. What next for them if not destitution in poverty structured in corruption state? Democracy is for…
…those who treasure rule of law (Constitution).
IRRESPONSIBLE POLITICIANS BUY THEIR VOTES TO BLOCK ANY REASONABLE Presidential Candidates