CIVIL servants’ salaries will, by June 2021, be restored to the United States dollar value that they stood at during the multi-currency era as Government continues to reform and grow the economy, a Cabinet Minister has said.
In his presentation at the Parliamentary Pre-Budget seminar
in Harare yesterday, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister
Professor Paul Mavima said Government had agreed a roadmap with the civil
servants representative body, the Apex Council, to continuously improve wages
in line with workers’ demands.
Civil servants are demanding a salary equivalent to US$520
which they earned before the country abandoned the multi-currency system in
2019. Prof Mavhima said Government was amenable to meeting this demand.
“We have made a lot of progress with civil servants. When
we started this year civil servants were complaining that they were earning
something like $30 to $40 equivalent in US dollar terms.
“But if you look at where we are today, using the auction
rate, we have reached the US$200 level which is a very big improvement. We have
signed an agreement with the Apex Council accepting that level, but we have
also in that agreement come up with a road map to continuously improve the
conditions of service for civil servants to where maybe by June or July next
year we may have clawed back to the levels they are demanding of July-August
2018.”
Prof Mavima implored civil servants to be patient saying
meeting the workers’ salary demands was achievable.
“It’s a process. I think it’s important for civil servants
to understand that. It depends much on the performance of the economy and if we
continue to build on the progress we have made so far we will reach the levels
they demand. The truth is that the Government is not in a position to pay the
2018 salaries right now because there is no money.”
Government has maintained that it could afford a minimum
teacher’s salary of ZWL$18 000 a month. Last week, civil servants accepted
Government’s offer of a 41 percent salary increase and a bonus whose payment
will be staggered from this month to December. The increment will see the least
paid civil servant earning a salary of $14 524. The deal also saw striking
teachers return to work. Sunday News
0 comments:
Post a Comment