And the ugly scenes are back at the city chief’s office. Staff on strike block access to city council offices grinding all business to a halt. They want their money back.

“We haven’t been paid for three months now. People are very angry. They have sealed entrance to offices of the CEO and the Director of Health and Finance. The major challenge is that management doesn’t understand our views, says Typen Kamanga President of Council Workers Union.

This sit-in follows failure by the council to pay staff from the month of April.

The workers insist they will not stop abandoning work up until they are paid.

This new industrial action is coming some three months after another on the same subject matter which observers says points to issues of management planning.

In the last instance, the council had to sell property worth over K52 million to pay four months’ salary arrears.

Now the workers, apparently fed-up with recurrent problems, want, among other things, that CEO Gomezgani Nyasulu and Director of Health, Lilian Chirwa, as well as the Director of Finance, Salom Tsoka, to resign.

The workers allege that the senior officers are ill-advised on how to run operations.

But Mzuzu City Council spokesperson, McDonald Gondwe, says the management is working on the issues raised by the staff for an amicable resolution of the matter.

“As council, we will continue engaging the workers’ union and every member of the union to ensure that the two parties reach a compromise,” he said.

The council has close to 300 support staff concerned in this matter.