Public Service minister Paul Mavima told NewsDay on the
sidelines of the on-going eighth edition of the Continental Africa Public
Service Day Commemorations in Victoria Falls that salary increments would
cripple productive sectors of the economy.
The teachers want salaries equivalent to US$520 up to
US$550 which they used to earn pre-October 2018. They said if government could
not pay them in foreign currency, it should pay them the equivalent amounts at
the bank rate.
Their calls for salary reviews come at a time when the
monthly breadbasket of a family of six has risen to $43 000.
Mavima said salary increments would disturb the ongoing
International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-monitored programme which has resulted
in government imposing tight fiscal policy measures aimed at arresting public
spending.
“That is counterproductive .That is why we are talking
about maintaining minimal charges for now because we want to maintain a balance
where we can reserve resources for construction of roads, schools, and health
facilities instead of paying public servants just to sit without service
delivery or infrastructural delivery,” he said on Thursday last week.
“There has to be a painful and sometimes delicate balance
between meeting the demand of our public service and maintaining some resources
for the country.”
But the unions said government could not claim that it was
trying to grow the economy through austerity measures that cut salaries of
already under-paid civil servants.
“The misguided attitude of trying to grow the economy
through slashing salaries will be a disaster. Aggregate demand will be
suppressed leading to further contraction of the economy. Austerity has never
worked and unfortunately, our government officials are behaving like a fool who
celebrates a congratulatory message from a con-artist who is plotting to dupe
them,” Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Obert Masaraure
said.
He said IMF policies had ruined global economies, adding
that austerity measures, coupled with corruption and misgovernance would bring
Zimbabwe’s economy to its knees.
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Takavafira
Zhou said: “Mavima’s assertions will cripple the productive sectors of the
economy and must be considered as a dangerous joke. Teachers have never asked
for a salary increase, but restoration of the purchasing power parity of their
salaries that were pegged at US$520-US$550 in October 2018. Our plight must
never be decided by neo-liberal policies that entrench the shocking contrast
between poverty of workers and richness of a few elite rulers.”
Zhou said government should justify paying hefty salaries
to other government workers at the expense of teachers.
Zimbabwe Teachers Association secretary-general Goodwell
Taderera said: “We are highly shocked and disgusted by the minister’s purported
utterances of a no salary increment situation. I think that is a mischievous
statement to say the least, especially coming from a minister who is supposed
to be fighting in our corner. I hope he did not mean what he said.” Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment