About 400 to 500 employees of the NCDC are protesting the ‘No Jab, No Job’ policy being imposed by the NCD management, causing mayhem, affecting half of the workers across the board.
About 200 or more employees gathered today at Waigani to express frustration on the imposition of the City Commission on the employees getting the COVID-19 vaccination.
A very senior employee, former Coordinator of Betelnut Control Secretariat, Honk Kiap said that they have visited other government agencies and department, they did not witness so much fuss about getting vaccination but demanded that testing facilities are provided. However, he said with NCDC, it is very different.
“Staff of various departments are left to make their own choice to get vaccinated or not, but they are allowed to go to work, they’re allowed to go and do a test.
“Some are providing testing facilities for their staff to get tested, and upon the negative result they produce they are going to work. There is no issue and controversy, but in NCDC, there’s a big controversy. Someone is pushing an agenda and that agenda we do not know,” Mr Kiap said.
NCDC employees expressed that many of them had underlying health issues and therefore didn’t want to be vaccinated. Thus, the leaders asked the Commission to give them time to come to terms with their own health, and choose to be vaccinated or not.
However, he said this is not going down well with NCD Governor, Powes Parkop and the City Manager, Bernard Kipit. They want to see everyone vaccinated.
Since the last payday unvaccinated employees have had their salaries docked, while others including senior officers have been sacked, including Kiap himself.
According to Mr Kiap, other senior officers within the Commission have been terminated due to the ‘No Jab, No Job’ policy.
