via Skint govt mulls non monetary pay deal NewZimbabwe 10 January 2014
THE cash-strapped government is considering non-monetary benefits for its estimated 230,000-strong workforce as it appears the cash is not available to honour a pledge by President Robert Mugabe to nearly double their salaries.
Zanu PF offered to increase civil service salaries in line with the country’s Poverty Datum Line (PDL) which is estimated at just over US$500, a development that would see wages of the least paid staffers being doubled.
But talks between unions and government officials have yet to reach a deal and increasingly restive teachers have demanded answers.
“We had a meeting with the government on December 24 last year where we forwarded our grievances as teachers to the government hoping to get a positive response but to no avail,” said Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta) president Richard Gundane this week.
“During the meeting, the government had no comprehensive answer to the urgent review of salaries and all it could afford was to make reference to the two policy papers – that is the ZimAsset and the 2014 budget statement.
“The sum of the statements provided for in the 2014 budget is that the PDL-anchored salary adjustment is not attainable in the short term. This therefore paints a gloomy picture for this month.”
Labour minister Nicholas Goche however, told State media that a meeting scheduled for Wednesday would likely provide clarity over the issue.
“The negotiating teams are meeting on Wednesday and we have already informed the staff associations through a letter,” he said.
“The meeting will see Government responding to their position paper which they submitted recently. We have our position as Government and we will first reveal that position, what we have to offer and negotiate from there.”
Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa lamented the size of the government wage bill in his 2014 budget saying salaries had taken up 75 percent of revenues in 2013. He said this needed to be reduced to 30 percent by 2018.
Goche said the government would offer the workers non-monetary benefits, an option the unions appear to be open to.
“We have a two-pronged approach on the issue of housing,” he said.
“Government plans to build houses for its workers and though it is long- term that should be the norm. The houses have also to be afford-able and as such NSSA is putting aside a substantial amount to start that. It is setting up a new financial fund to deal with that.
“The good thing is that the workers will participate in doing that by suggesting their ideas while we suggest what we can also do. I believe if we put our ideas together sincerely, then something positive would come up at the end of the day.”
COMMENTS
THE HONEYMOON IS OVER!
words! You mean houses are cheaper to build than just giving these hard working people their salaries?
Mere illusions. We should not entrust this corrupt regime with such a mammoth task. We paid a lot through the pay for your housing scheme but very few benefited before Mugarbage s minister Chikoore looted all our savings leaving us destitute. After the callous murambatsvina mugarbage built a few houses which he gave out to a few well conncted zanoids leaving thousands homeless , unions together with progressive workers should reject such deception from these predators
IIts surprising that nowadays the civil service is blamed for gobling govt coffers yet strange budgets of millitary academies and equipment ar not even mentioned.who eats a bullet.who is more useful ,a nurse or a fuel guzzling armuored tank.stop using civil servants as a scape goat and put your priorities straight.
First and foremost all institutions in Zimbabwe have downsized somewhat. Since the taxpaying population has dwindled so much why do we still have the same number of civil servants. The “war against the puppets and colonialists has been overwhelmingly worn” therefore we can start downsizing our soldier head count. Give them land as retirement packages and keep them as reserves and divert the funds saved to those who manufucture and pay taxes. For instance $40 000/month for a parastatal head multiplied by 30 entities over 1 year is $ 14million. $36million to their surbodinates if each has 5 member team earning half the CEO bosses. That is equivalent to $50million a year for salaries to CEO who are managing loss making companies. The parastatals can be transformed into public companies with the retrenched civil servants being given shareholding which they can trade on the stock market as desired by each shareholder.
This will be 2 pronged solution. Remove some of the civil servants and the parastatals from the government bill and thereby making them into viable members of the society (both the servants and the parastatals). The retrenched servants will become viable through managing their cooperates and the cooperates will become viable because they will be properly managed.
The 2nd aspect is that the money saved from the fiscus can be used to finance other known viable entities like Ziscosteel etc, again made into a public company with retrenched civil servants as shareholders.
My idea may or may not be brilliant, but I am sure there are many brilliant solutions to our problems, but obviously due to the rewarding of non competencies some of those ideas will not see the light of day.
Humans are inherently lazy, therefore if any human being can be paid for non performance that will become the norm. Humans need motivation to produce results. Basic psychology taught in every business course. I thot we were educated. Or we do not know and understand what we were taught.
Non-monetary benefits! My foot. Not from these corrupt people. These people are so shamelessly corrupt that the poor civil servant is not going to benefit anything. If they are houses they wil go to sons, daughters, girlfriends mistresses etc of these thieves.
Housing is a basic right hence I don’t see why Goche is making it look like its an incentive.A government with its people at heart makes housing for its people a priority not to use it to suppress its citizenry.Civil servants lets reject this nonsense we want money and decide what we want to do with it.
The government are a total mess. First of all corruption needs to be addressed. big problem no will to do it as it would be like asking someone with an eating problem to guard the pantry. The belt needs to be tightened from top to bottom and ZPF have no clue what those words mean.Half the ministeries need to be shut down and most of the senate and many of the MP’s. What do these guys do anyway? Our government is totally bloated, our armed forces also and so is the civil service. Funny how they always fine money for new ministerial vehicles and travel etc. I say fire the lot and start again!