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SODELPA Parliamentary Opposition staff based at the Opposition Chambers who live outside Suva have been asked to document their productivity after the chambers was closed for renovations last month.

It comes after an internal memo, signed by chief strategist Pita Wise, instructed to withhold the salaries of a number of staff members.

The memo stated that because the Opposition and Government offices were closed from April 17 for renovations, staff members were directed to work from the SODELPA office on MacGregor Road. However, some of them chose to work from the Parliament Library to adhere to social distancing rule. Meanwhile, because of the recent uplifting of the lockdown, some staff living outside of Suva chose to stay and work from home.

These staff members’ pay is now in question.

SODELPA does not have a work from home policy, Mr Wise confirmed.

Mr Rabuka said the memo was a result of Mr Wise’s dissatisfaction with the workers turnout.

He said instead of totally going straight ahead and withholding their salaries and wages, the staff were asked to explain why they had not come forward to work when they were offered an alternative site for them to continue their work which was at the party office. “Some workers are working at the party office and some upstairs to comply with the restrictions given out by the health authorities and the government,” Mr Rabuka said. “However, some of them felt that they were still working well from home and that will just have to be clarified in their explanations to the Chief Strategist.

“This is only for the time that they did not have a proper explanation of why they did not come to work. “Some of the staff are working from this office and some are working from the library at the Parliament.

“As long as they comply with the Government requirement where they come in, clock in, register that they are working and they are available when called up via telephone or via email,” Mr Rabuka said.