Telikom staff ask State to pay up

Telikom PNG Limited are calling on the Government to help honour their retrenchment entitlements of about K12.5 million to be paid as per the Supreme Court decision for this payment to be done without imposing any tax.About 300-plus former employees were identified and earmarked to be made redundant in June 12,2011 through a decision that was approved by the Board of Directors of Telikom PNG Limited that approved the staff voluntary redundancy exit plan.The workers through a document showed to this paper said most of them voluntarily retrenched hoping that a decision that was made by the National Executive Council (NEC) that same year in July 12,2011 for their entitlements to be tax exempted, will be honoured. The workers with their lawyer, Tau Kamuta of Kamuta Legal Service held a press conferment in Port Moresby on Monday and expressed their concern on this outstanding agreement.Kamuta told the media that upon this original agreement the Government at that time (2011) agreed for the payment to be done without being taxed but Telikom PNG Limited decided to tax the workers ranging from about 25% to 45% depending on their rates.The workers then took the matter to court.He said through a court decision in 2015 the Supreme Court in its ruling made a decision in favor for this K12.5 million to be paid as per the tax exemption agreement.Kamuta said what the Supreme Court said was that the Government could help on procedure wise because Telikom or the chief executive officer could not approve K12 million and is the prerogative of NEC or the Government.“So, in other words that exemption promised by way of the NEC decision was never honoured and when we went to court, the court said no it was a government promise and Telikom has to comply with that decision,” he said. Kamuta said that they also wrote a letter to Prime Minister James Marape in which he (Marape) wrote a letter to Telikom to help the workers settle their grievances.“We have also written a letter to the Minister for State Enterprises, William Duma but currently we have not heard any responses from him,” he said.“We have asked for several negotiations such as instalment payments or things like that but nothing yet.”Kamuta further said that these workers were the once that started this company from what it used to be called the Post and Telecommunication (PTC) to now Telikom PNG Limited. He said they were the pioneers and for them to be ignored this way is really bad.Meanwhile, the worker’s spokesperson Maria Yehinaka expressed her concern on behalf of the workers and said just a week ago Telikom made a net profit of about K28 million and had paid about K3 million to the State as dividend.She said it should not be an issue when trying to settle this payment.Yehinaka said some of these workers have passed on.