Source: Zimbabwe public workers reject higher government salary offer – Times Live
Supporters attend the Zimbabwe ruling party Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) youth interface rally in Bulawayo on November 4, 2017.
Image: ZINYANGE AUNTONY / AFP
Zimbabwe’s public sector workers have rejected an improved salary offer of 15% from President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government and want wages for the lowest paid employees to more than double, the main public sector union said on Tuesday.
The government agreed last week to raise salaries by 10% for the army, police and other civil servants from July, when Zimbabwe is expected to hold its first general election since Robert Mugabe left power last year.
Apex Council, the union which represents all government workers, said the government’s higher offer on Monday was still below the poverty datum line (PDL) used to assess whether a person is deemed poor.
Zimbabwe’s PDL is $591, while the lowest government worker earns $253 a month.
The new president, who came to power following a de facto army coup against 94-year-old Mugabe in November, has already faced public sector anger when doctors and nurses went on strike in March and April.
“We would like to urge the government to improve the salary of the lowest paid to PDL,” Apex Council chairperson Cecilia Alexander said.
“We have not yet reached a deadlock. Dialogue is still ongoing,” Alexander added.
– Reuters
COMMENTS
Buying political relevance, that is all. Most civil service workers are lazy and unproductive. They are more in this for the corruption than service to the country.
Teachers, college lecturers, university professors produce graduates who can’t even feed themselves (a basic need requiring a basic skill). Some Nurses and doctors do try, but still the hospitals are ill equipped. Govt ministers and senior military staff are busy running their farms and importing containers for sale, not developing the country. The rest of the civil servants are more relevant as obstructionists than economic enablers. They sit on approvals, sell business secrets to their friends and relatives or Chinese.
The politicians read speeches as a special skill, after the applause they go to do their private businesses or they dine with foreigners in the hope of windows of opportunity for an easy picking until the next elections when they come with new promises. They buy political favours by organizing young people, not to produce in factories, but to stand by the street corner (rank) and charge a dollar for any car that wants to load passengers. They also create multi-stakes of rent seeking institutions like non productive debating clubs like NECs where contributions are a legal requirement. Yes, that’s the land of Munhumutapa.