Zimpapers Logo

The issue of high salaries paid to chief executives of councils and public enterprises need to be addressed urgently. The government has for sometime now been mourning about the impact of these obscene salaries to the smooth running of councils and state enterprises. Most councils and public enterprises are failing to pay salaries as well as meet other critical financial obligations. This is largely blamed on the hefty salaries and perks paid to chief executives and senior managers.

The bulk of the councils and state enterprises’ revenue is gobbled by salaries at the expense of service deliveries. Most councils are behind in the payment of salaries, a confirmation that the salaries are not realistic. It is a fact that most councils and state enterprises’ wage bills are not sustainable hence the salaries arrears.

When the country adopted multi-currency in 2009, most councils and state enterprises came up with unrealistic salaries especially for top managers which are far divorced from the prevailing economic environment.The government on the other hand came up with modest salaries which in our view should be used as benchmarks by councils, state enterprises and even the private sector. We want at this juncture to commend the government for coming up with a salary structure for management at local authorities.

The government has pegged the salary for the Town Clerk of Harare at about $10,000 a month down from $27,000 he is earning. The new salary, however, remains too high given the fact that Harare City Council is one of the local authorities that are behind in payment of salaries and the Town Clerk and the rest of workers are owed millions of dollars.

It is a fact that the economy at present cannot sustain salaries as high as $10,000 a month for an individual. We therefore want to implore the government to re-visit the proposed salary structure guided by civil servants salary levels.

The government last year pegged the salary of the Harare Town Clerk at $9,000 a month and also came up with new salaries for executives of other local authorities but this was never implemented as executives continued to earn the obscene salaries.

We hope this time around, the government has come up with a mechanism to enforce its directive. It serves no purpose to just peg salaries without a mechanism to enforce the directive. The Town Clerk of Harare Tendai Mahachi recently demanded an outrageous exit package running into millions of dollars which is informed by his hefty salary and allowances.

He wants council to pay him $100,000 for every year served, two vehicles, a mansion, commercial stand and other outrageous packages. It is unfortunate that despite the fact that councils and state enterprises are failing to pay salaries, chief executives and senior managers regard the entities as bottomless pits that should continue to pay unrealistic salaries and allowances.

We want to once again implore the government to be hard on the councils and state enterprises whose chief executives recently rushed to retrench shop floor workers resulting in the exercise serving no purpose as no savings were realised despite the high numbers of employees dismissed.