Customs officers vent frustrations over their dues |26 September 2019

The customs workers on strike

Some forty customs officers went on strike yesterday at the Cargo Terminal, Pointe Larue over what they have described as dissatisfaction with the increase in their pay that had been promised to them.

Maria Saleh Ibrahim Abdoulaye, the spokesperson of the ‘Customs’ section at the International airport, said: “We decided strike as we are not satisfied with the increase we have received compared to what we expected to have. The way they explained to us before and the way things have turned out is different. When we had a meeting with the management they told us the Department of Public Administration will come around to do a survey to see the actual work that we do in order to decide on the salary we should get. Supposedly after the survey they would get back to the management of SRC (Seychelles Revenue Commission) and then we were supposed to have a meeting to agree upon their proposal and recommendations. The meeting should have happened by the end of August but nobody informed us about it. We received an email on September 24 to let us know that we would receive our salary on September 25.”

According to the customs staff, their salary and allowance should have increased but this has not happened.

“We have received an increase but not a significant one. Some got R300 and others got R187. We will be on strike until somebody tells us where the R17.9 million (the sum which would cater for the increases) is gone. It has been almost three years since we are fighting for a change in the scheme and we hope to discuss further with the management,” noted Ms Saleh Ibrahim Abdoulaye.

On SRC side, we were told that “only the customs staff are not satisfied with the new scheme and they said they will not work until they get proper clarifications”.

Paul Barrack, Commissioner Customs, who was also present talking to the staff, did not give any comments to the press.

To recall, the staff were supposed to receive their dues as of January this year. They did stage a strike some months ago where they met the Minister for Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning, Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, to vent out their frustrations.

Meanwhile during the strike yesterday, the secretary general of the Seychelles Federation of Workers Union, Antoine Robinson, encouraged for some of the representatives of the Customs Unit to have a formal meeting with the different agencies.

A meeting did take place at 1pm yesterday at the New Port and ended around 3.30pm. The representatives of the Ministry of Finance, the SRC including the human resource manager and other managerial staff, the Ministry of Employment, the principal secretary for trade, the SFWU and the customs staff attended the meeting.

“The staff of customs department were able to vent out their frustration and while on the negotiating table, we could see there was a lack of communication between the different partners. At the beginning, after looking at the type of job the customs staff had to do, they were promised a good scheme but it seems that the DPA did otherwise. The basic salary is still too low and even there is no big change in the allowances. Some supervisors did not get any increase whereas some others got some. There are still some discrepancies that need to be addressed,” said Mr Robinson.

He further noted that the staff themselves democratically appointed 13 of their colleagues to represent them in further negotiation.

“I advised the staff to get back to work and let the negotiations pursue. A meeting is also fixed with the DPA today (September 26) at 9.30 and with the other representatives who attended the meeting yesterday (Wednesday). Instead of just accepting the terms of DPA, SRC should have gone back to the staff and fix that. It is high time that SRC becomes an independent body,” concluded Mr Robinson.