The Sunday Mail
Lincoln Towindo and Tinashe Farawo
Civil servants will receive their salaries consistently from July 2016, and will not be embarking on a collective job action following this assurance from Government. A meeting will take place in Harare tomorrow to finalise June salary payment, with Government proposing June 27 to 30 for uniformed forces and July 7 and 14 for teachers and nurses, respectively.
The civil servant team leader Mrs Cecilia Alexander said, “What is important for now is that Government has made a firm commitment to pay the July salaries during the same month.
“The Minister of Finance (and Economic Development) assured us that this delay will never happen again, not in our lifetime. As far as we are concerned, we are yet to resolve the way forward, but the issue of striking is out of the question.
“I don’t think we are going to strike given the commitment we got from the Minister of Finance.”
Of late, Treasury has been variably postponing salary and allowance payouts on the back of limited revenue.
This had agitated State employees, leading to last week’s interface between civil servant representatives and Ministers Patrick Chinamasa (Finance and Economic Development), Prisca Mupfumira (Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare) and David Parirenyatwa (Health and Child Care).
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya and Civil Service Commission officials were also present.
Government’s monthly wage bill is US$200 million, gobbling about 80 percent of revenue.
Minister Mupfumira told The Sunday Mail that authorities would mobilise resources early to meet agreed pay dates, with various options also being considered.
“We are trying to achieve a win-win situation whereby all parties will leave the negotiating table with a degree of satisfaction. We pledge to make sure that the July salaries are paid on normal dates and hope to sustain that state of affairs going into the future.
“We have been appealing for calm and understanding from the workers as we try to work out a solution to this problem. You will notice that a similar situation is also happening within the private sector where workers are receiving their salaries late, but that is not the situation we want as Government.
“It is far-fetched to say that we are at a deadlock because we expect everything to be sorted to everyone’s satisfaction during the meeting (tomorrow’s).
‘‘We cannot go to the President to look for a solution at this moment because he already has plenty on his desk. As ministers, we are the managers responsible for this, and we have to solve it on our own.”
Mrs Alexander added that unions are still consulting and would consolidate their position for tomorrow’s meeting.
“Our worry was how our members will report for duty without salaries and again Government said it is going to suspend the payment of bus fare during that period.
“Still, very few of our members use those (Public Service Commission buses). We appreciate the challenges that we are facing as a country, but we made it clear to Government that our members are not happy with the delay in payment of salaries.”
