Agricultural extension officers around the country are threatening to down tools after government overlooked them on COVID-19 risk allowances, a source close to the matter told NewsDay.
The extension workers are alleging that district, provincial,
head office, general workers as well as other office workers were paid over $20
000 as COVID-19 risk allowances, but they did not get anything after being
engaged to conduct training on the Pfumvudza farming concept at the height of
the first national lockdown early this year.
“We risked our families by hosting these agricultural
demonstrations with farmers when the country was on level five lockdown, but
government chose to pay those who were in offices COVID-19 risk allowances
including those in the human resources department and general hands,” the
source said on condition of anonymity as they are not allowed to speak to the
Press.
“This government has reduced us to farm workers. We do all
the donkey work, for example, crop and livestock assessment but we are not paid
anything. Is this government different from the government that runs hospitals
whereby staff is paid handsomely for just collecting information just like us?
“They are now focusing on advertising Pfumvudza on every
platform, but they are forgetting those who implemented and made the Pfumvudza
programme a success. With no PEPs and other protective clothing we managed to
train farmers countrywide,” said the source.
The extension workers also allege that they were forced to
open accounts to buy phones with an Android operating system. The gadgets
enable them to demonstrate work done on mobile device-based data collection
tools including Opteran Development Kit (ODK) which enables technology to be
integrated into a wide variety of applications in the robotics market.
“While teachers and nurses were not reporting for work
because of incapacitation we were ordered to post the country’s harvest using
this ODK which needs Android phones. How on earth did the government think we
got the money to pay for those phones?
“Extension workers were forced to borrow from phone
companies to carry out government tasks. We are incapacitated and government
must give us allowances to cater for these gadgets.
To most extension staff Android phones were not of much
importance because their work is manual.”
Permanent secretary for the Agriculture, Lands, Water and
Rural Resettlement ministry John Bhasera (pictured) confirmed the matter, but
refused to comment and referred questions to the Public Service Commission.
“I cannot comment on that ask the Public Service
Commission. They are in a better position to comment on that,” Bhasera said.
Attempts to get comment from Public Service secretary
Jonathan Wutaunashe were fruitless as his mobile went unanswered. Newsday
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