Ex-MYPs Plans Vigil at Capital Hill If Govt Pays Blind Eye on their Petition
The former MYP's during 2014 petition |
The concerned Ex-Malawi Young Pioneers (Ex-MYP) have warned government that if it ignores their petition presented on Friday, they will congregate at Capital Hill until their demands are met.
Ex-MYP’s whose membership exceeds 2000 national wide, presented a petition to Lilongwe District Commissioner’s office and the letter was received by Naphtali Chabuka, Management Information Systems Officer. The group is battling with government on payment of their retirement compensation and premature retirement package.
Among others the group is asking president Mutharika to act on long overdue grievances surrounding on premature retirement package and compensation following 1993 disarmament exercise by Malawi Defense Force and Police, dubbed Operation Bwezani.
“Should it happen that government doesn’t want to give us our money, we have to converge at Capital Hill” said Hendrix Chijota, National Publicity Secretary for Ex-MYP
“We will be on the Vigil” he added but said this will happen upon expiry of 14 days period expressed in their petition.
They have given Mutharika 14 days and 5 days grace period then vigils at Malawis Administration Premise |
“We have given government 14 days, after the period expires and see that our demands are not met, then we will give them just 5 days as grace period” he said and assured that “From that point we have to make vigil”
Chijota said the vigils will be peaceful “But we will be camping at Capital Hill premises without being interfered with anyone or anything”
He repeated their demands “We are looking for premature retirement package because since the disarmament exercise was taking place most of us were young and did not reach a retirement age and secondly we are looking for compensation because the way they handled us we feel there were several forms of human rights abuse.”
Vigils will not end until government begins payment Parade of their compensation |
He explained “When we were being severed, we were handled as if we were not citizens of this country, our friends lost their lives and wives raped in presence of their children”
He continued “We are citizens and we were civil servants who contributed immensely to the development of this nation in terms of agriculture, construction and security matters among others”