Tanesco’s contract with Erolink sparks concern

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) has signed an agreement with a recruitment and outsourcing company, Erolink Tanzania Ltd, to run its customer care service in a development that has sparked five arguments.

The arguments include the future of the 270 workers of the centre as well as the reduction of wages for those who will continue to serve the centre.

According to the agreement that is to be effective in the next few days, Tanesco will be paying Erolink for serving all of its customers seeking electricity services after winning the tender floated in May, this year.

However, Tanesco’s managing director Maharage Chande stated that Erolink will have the right to decide who is deserving of joining its team and who is not based on their minimum requirements for employment.

Meanwhile, the general manager for Erolink, Mr Maximillian Tumaini said, the company will give a priority to employing the existing workers after the expiry of their contracts.

“Currently, there are those workers whose contracts with Tanesco will expire in January, February or April. Those whose contracts expire under Tanesco’s payroll, we will see if we can continue with them,” said Mr Tumaini.

He stressed that the criteria to be used in the decision whom to employ will be that one should possess diplomas and those with a proven record of conducting themselves ethically in their service delivery.

“Regarding the salary scales, we start from Sh400,000 onwards but it depends on the contract we sign with our workers. If they are complaining about an Sh700,000 pay, the truth is that our costs of serving one worker are more than that,” said Mr Tumaini.

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But some of the workers to be affected by the contract raised their concerns yesterday, saying they were afraid of losing their jobs.

They also argue that some of them would have their salaries slashed in the new arrangements with the new employer.

The other argument being put forward by the employees is that there will be leakage of Tanesco’s information as its services will now be accessed by a private firm and also that instead of cutting costs and raising efficiency, the new arrangement could actually become a burden to Tanesco in terms of a rise in costs.

Another argument raised by the workers is the alleged violation of the National Employment Promotion Service Act no. 9 of 1999, which prevents job recruitment agency companies from employing and hiring workers, recruiting on behalf of another company, and being part of employment relationships between job seekers and employers.

However, the Act does not prevent a company from hiring its services and unemployed workers to an agency company as Tanesco did in its agreement, despite being a state-owned company.

“We have already been informed that our wages will be reduced from Sh757,700 to Sh400,000 for the same working hours but Erolink will benefit by exploiting us more. Why should they reduce our wages?” queried one of the workers on condition of not being named.

He said workers at the centre were also responsible for protecting the government’s data.

“Tanesco operates with a shoestring budget while at the same time it signs a deal to benefit other people with whom it has interests. This violates the company’s privacy and is dishonourable to the government. What will Erolink be adding?” queried another worker of the centre.

Energy minister January Makamba has on several occasions stressed the need to transform Tanesco’s operations in an effort to improve the efficiency of the power utility firm.

Last year, the new management team and new board were given the mantle to supervise Tanesco’s operations.