The Government’s economic ineptitude has come to the fore
again after it emerged that its 13 state of the art training centres dotted
around the country are charging RTGS$5 for accommodation per person per night.
This is at a time when lodges and hotels of their standards are charging RTGS$880 per night. Most of the hotels are charging $2 200 per night. The charges are so ludicrous that they are giving a big strain on the cash- strapped Government.
The training institutions which are owned by the Public Service Commission are being used by private companies to book their staff for key training workshops. In some cases groups of people on holiday book the facilties.
The 13 institutes which are run by the Public Service
Commission are Avord, Bikita, Toronto, Ruwa, Domboshava, Senga, Elan- geni,
Eskhovheni, Chinhoyi, Highlands, Murehwa, Inyati and Thuli.
An investigation by The Mirror in which the reporter paused
as someone who wanted to book accommodation for a workshop showed that the
majority
of the
training institutions charged RTGS$5 while a few charged
RTGS$10.
All the principals talked to said that they did not know
when Government is going to review the fees.
Public Service Commmission Secretary Ambassador Jonathan
Wutawunashe said ”Institutes charge rates that are approved
by
Treasury. In view of changes
in the operating enviroment,
PSC proposal to review accomodation rates significantly is already under
consideration by Treasury and it is expected that new rates will shortly be in
force.”
Efforts to get a comment from the Treasury chief Mthuli Ncube were futile.
RTGS$5 is now the equivalence of US33c at the current
market exchange rates.
The principals at these institutions who talked to The
Mirror said the charges are so meaningless the colleges cannot buy three
packets of washing powder after booking 50
people for a night. A 2kg packet of BOOM washing powder costs $93 at OK
Supermarket.
“We need to do laundry for sheets every day. We need to buy
detergents for toilets, we need floor polish and pay Zinwa for water that the
guests are using and the net effect is that we are provid- ing service for free
and soon these institutions will be run down,” said a principal without
realizing that he was speaking to the Press.
“The cost for accommodation is $5 but it will be reviewed
as promised by the Government, we don’t know when this will happen,” said one
of the principals.
Masvingo Mirror
0 comments:
Post a Comment