Minister for Justice, Bryan Kramer has revealed that the government has a shortfall of K20 million to back pay court officials who have been without pay since 2015.
Since taking office as the minister for Justice, Bryan Kramer said he will make it his priority to put court officials who have been without pay over the years on the payroll.
In a recent press conference, the minister revealed that the government has a short fall of K20 million to back pay the officials.
In 2015, the government decided that every village court should have additional two peace officers and two magistrates. However, the government did not have the budget support to fund the officials.
“A decision was made to add two additional peace officers and two magistrate to each village court. The government did not think it through if we have the money to pay them. So they made the decision without doing enough research to establish if we have the budget support to fund them. For that reason they were never put on the budget since 2015. There is a budget gap of K20 million to bring them on the payroll”
Kramer said his department will also be looking at back paying these court officials.
“Since 2015, they have been working without getting pay so there is a process involved to establish which court officials have been turning up, who has been working and who hasn’t been working. Those that have been working will be entitled to back pay”, said minister Kramer.