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Minister Mupfumira

Pamela Shumba Senior Reporter
THE government is in the process of auditing the civil service salary bill as part of an initiative to find  strategies on how it can be reduced, Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Prisca Mupfumira has said.Minister Mupfumira said the government continued to face financial challenges, forcing it to revisit the civil service wage bill, which is taking 80 percent of the national budget.

“My ministry, together with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service Commission (PSC) will on Monday start discussing how we can reduce  the salary bill. We’re still working on an audit of  the civil service wage bill and this should be able to help us in mapping the way forward,” said Minister   Mupfumira.

“The government is facing serious financial challenges and it’s not a secret. We’ve to revisit the size of the civil servants’ salary bill, which is taking 80 percent of the budget.”

While on a tour of Bulawayo’s social security facilities on Thursday, the minister said negotiations with civil servants over salaries will continue, as the government strives for a win-win situation.

“Negotiations with the Apex Council will continue. We’ve just started revamping the Tripartite Negotiating Forum as well as the National Joint Negotiating Council (NJNC) as we try to improve relations between the government and the workers,” she said.

“This is witnessed by the selection of the new chairman of the negotiating forum and the alternate chairperson. Negotiations will therefore start soon and I hope that communication will improve between government and the workers.”

The minister said so far she has held meetings with representatives from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU) to get their position on the issue of salaries.

Minister Mupfumira said the government was sticking to its promise to provide non-monetary benefits, which include houses to all the country’s civil servants.

“The government still remains committed to improving the welfare of its workers. I’m happy that we managed to pay the 2014 bonus despite the existing challenges. We’re conscious of our workers’ welfare and we want people to be paid accordingly,” said the minister.

Last week, she ruled out the possibility of a salary increase, saying there was little productivity in the economy to justify higher pay.
In his Monetary Policy Statement recently, Reserve Bank Governor, John Mangudya called for a salary freeze this year saying the country’s economy cannot sustain any increases.

Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) boss Commissioner General Gershom Pasi also called for a wage cut for government employees, arguing that  the state erred when it made the initial salary  adjustments after the adoption of multi-currencies in 2009.

He said the figures were “artificially high” to be sustained by the struggling economy.

The ZCTU has, however rejected the proposal and alleged that there was a conspiracy among top government officials to trample on workers’ rights.