Malaita’s unvaccinated staff receive half pay

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

Auki

NON-vaccinated direct employees of Malaita received only half of their salaries yesterday as the province started to implement the “no jab no job” policy.

According to information received from the provincial government, up to quarter of the staff were affected because of their failure to comply with the policy.

The policy should have been imposed on the first payday of this month; however the province decided to move it to this payday to allow staff to get their vaccines.

The provincial government has long been lenient on its effort to safeguard its employees, but since the COVID outbreak in the province, it decided to get tough on those who refused to vaccinate.

Also part of the province’s efforts to stop the transmission, number of awareness program on the policy and the vaccine were provided to staff.

Last month, a circular was issued to the unvaccinated staff on the policy.

A spokesman said the province had done all it could do in as far as awareness is concerned so not it’s time to implement the no jab, no work policy.

According to information Island Sun has obtained, the province employs 188 staff – 144 of them have been vaccinated while 46 are yet to do so.

Of the unvaccinated 46, there are those who claimed they have underlying medical conditions, but they failed to provide medical reports to back their claim.

As such, the province decided to treat them as unvaccinated.

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