Zim economic rot hits civil servants hard

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.

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