Friday, November 1, 2024

BOMAWU joins other unions denouncing Covid-19 awards

The Covid-19 Frontline Awards continue to attract scorn from workers unions with the latest being the Botswana Media and Allied Workers Union (BOMAWU).

The awards, premised under the theme “Bagaka Ba Rona”, categorises frontline workers as Health Workers, Health Care Support Workers, Immigration and Customs Officials, BDF, Police, Security Officers, Social Workers and Truck Drivers, according to the floated advert. 

Two unions, the Botswana Mine Workers Union (BOMWU) and the Botswana Nurses Union (BONU) have publicly come out to detest the awards. 

BOMAWU has become the third union to contest the awards. 

Although the union has not approached any of the sponsors or even the Task Force regarding the exclusion of media, BOMAWU are not pleased with the awards. President of BOMAWU, Phillimon Mmeso, said:“We are totally against the awards as they are going to divide the frontline workers. This shows drought of thinking on those who proposed them.” The union instead supports bonuses for all the workers.

Botswana’s Presidential Covid-19 Task Force has partnered with Mascom and the De Beers Group to award front line workers who have been nominated by the public for their patriotic commitment and selflessness to serve during the Covid-19 pandemic. Quaint enough, the media have been excluded as frontline workers legible for the awards.

Despite the inclusion of health workers as frontliners, BONU has come out to detest the motive of the awards. The health workers’ union describes the awards as divisive and has further discouraged Batswana not to participate in nominating front ine health workers.

Grinding their axes against the controversial awards, BOMWU has also joined the assault in support of BONU’s sentiments. “Several important issues were raised by BONU, including, the discriminative nature of the initiative, its exclusion of other disciplines working in the frontlines,” read part of BOMWU’s statement.

Dr Mogomotsi Matshaba, Scientific Advisor of Botswana’s Covid-19 Task Force, clarified troubling issues in an interview with Yarona FM commercial radio station. He said that the purpose of the advertised awards is to maintain and build resilience. “Let us do the little that we can to motivate you to continue,” said Dr Matshaba who mentioned that the initiative is private-sector led. He told the radio station: “There is no money that is coming out of government coffers going into this initiative. It is private companies doing this.”

Dr Matshaba and the taskforce think of the awards as a decent idea. “It is worrying as to how it is perceived and the motive behind.” When the scientific advisor was asked why journalists are excluded from the list of front-line workers, he said that he agrees that the categories be looked at again. 

“I think anyone who can be termed as a frontline worker should be nominated because when you nominate, you write what they do, where they work, so it is not only restricted to the listed frontline workers so that anyone can stand a chance to get something out of this as well,” he said.

Deflecting BONU’s cynic strikes, Matshaba, said they saw the awards as a good idea because many other organizations do it annually including those who are complaining. 

“They also have their own annual awards that they do, so how they divide people, I mean we are trying to look into it, maybe we missed something. But in general, we think it’s a good initiative,” he added

The initiative will reward six Batswana frontline workers with De Beers Group’s Jewellery Brand Forevermark Botswana Diamonds all with a total value of 1 carat. Mascom will award 100 frontline workers with P100 000 worth of devices and data.

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