Ex-BP workers mobilising to camp at Hichilema’s house

Expendito Chipalo

Over 200 families of former British Petroleum (BP) Zambia workers have vowed to camp at the residence of opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema in Lusaka to demand for payment of their benefits.

Lead Plaintiff of the 236 BP Zambia pensioners, Expendito Chipalo says the move has been arrived at due to alleged failure by Mr. Hichilema and company to adhere to their demands.

Speaking at a press briefing in Lusaka yesterday, Mr. Chipalo says the plans to mobilise all the 236 families from across the country to camp at Mr. Hichilema residence have reached at an advanced stage.

ZANIS reports that Mr. Chipalo explained that Mr. Hichilema and company are the main shareholders of Menel Management Services, the company he said was responsible for the workers’ benefits.

He said the former 236 BP Zambia employees, 92 of whom have died, will carry out the exercise within the confines of the law.

And Mr. Chipalo has pleaded with Mr. Hichilema and company to quickly pay them their terminal benefits.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chipalo has argued that the move by the former BP Zambia pensioners’ families to camp at Mr. Hichilema’s residence is not politically inclined but that they were only demanding what was due to them.

The ex-BP workers were retrenched in March 1999.

Efforts to get a comment from Mr. Hichilema through his spokesperson Charles Kakoma and his deputy Cornelius Mweetwa failed as their mobile phones were not reachable.