Source: Zim economic rot hits civil servants hard – DailyNews Live
Ndakaziva Majaka 24 April 2017
HARARE – A senior government official has lifted the lid on the worsening
daily struggles that junior civil servants are going through due to the
country’s escalating economic rot.
Finance ministry’s accountant-general, Daniel Muchemwa, said last week
that most civil servants were now “down to their bare bones” – contrary to
the erroneous and widely-held perception that they were enjoying lucrative
government perks.
“If you drive up Samora Machel Avenue, turn into Simon Muzenda and look at
the buses that our junior civil servants use to go home … they pay for
them anyway … and we have not been able to replace them in a long, long
time.
“The second challenge is … my deputy has been in the job for a year. He
is entitled to a car and I do not know how often he opens his bonnet just
to get home … we have not been able to get him a vehicle,” Muchemwa told
accountants during their annual conference.
“Finally, I ask you to look at the Isuzu twin cabs … they are the most
prominent public service vehicles for our directors … you will not find
many that are new … as you can see, we are not living large.
“We have a large contingent liability for vehicles. There are directors
who are entitled to vehicles but do not have them.
“There is a lady who comes to my office who has been entitled to a vehicle
for the last seven years and is yet to get one,” he added as he gave
concrete examples of some of the travails civil servants are experiencing.
President Robert Mugabe’s stone-broke government currently spends more
than 90 percent of its revenue to pay its huge civil service salary bill.
However, it has been consistently failing to pay their dues on time due to
falling revenues and the country’s dying economy.
Zimbabwe is deep in the throes of a debilitating economic crisis which has
led to horrendous company closures and the consequent loss of hundreds of
thousands of jobs.
At the same time, economists have said that poverty levels in the country
are skyrocketing, with average incomes now at their lowest levels in more
than 60 years – with more than 76 percent of the country’s families now
having to make do with pitiful incomes that are well below the poverty
datum line of more than $500.
According to Africa 2016 Wealth Report, Zimbabwe has also been ranked as
the country with the poorest people on the continent, with average wealth
of $200 per person.
COMMENTS
Average wages at their lowest level in 60 years, amazing and they continue to fall. When will the people say enough is enough, do we have to wait until we are bartering with sticks and stones?
“Entitled”!
Per capita income in Zimbabwe is less than US$1000.
Most civil servants should not be “entitled” to vehicles. This includes management.
Our foolishness is tragic. How can people who live in a tropical desert be entitled to temperate fruits? We just need to live within our means, period. We destroyed everything so let’s not shed crocodile tears. We were warned by both friends and foes of our folly but insisted so let us face the music. The civil servants, being the largest working group and implementers of government policy, were so irresponsible. They could have fought the system by simply doing the right things. They did not. Instead they rode on the gravy train. They took the farms they could not farm, loans they could not repay, employed relatives without qualifications and went to “work” when others were on strike. As soldiers and police they brutalized, and continue to brutalize, the general population. They are complicit in the destruction of a once beautiful country. No one should have any sympathy for this lot.
Bravo Mazano. You have hit the nail right on the head. Those people that we are now encouraged to feel pity and sorry for deserve all they are now getting. They brought it upon themselves.
Were they not the very ones that propped up Mugabe and all his cronies when they were beating us all into the dirt? Now they must pay the price.
And where else in this world do you find every Tom, Dick and Tichawona civil servants with the right to vehicles as a work perk?
Walk and suffer, like all the rest of us do…
Bah…
Wow the oppressors now are also feeling the heat when comes to election you are first to put an X on zanu pf under the supervision of your seniors who make sure you all vote Bob as your vote is not a secret to get a job you have to be a member of zanu…not from a company called isuzu double cap .fuel is to expensive need to import it with hard cash not bond paper ,I suggest ride a donkey to work
Civil servants “down to bare bones”. These must be the ghost workers. Yes?
Well articulated by Mazano. About 75% of all evil servants support Zpf so they must feel the hardships of their weird support.