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Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
THE Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Cde Saviour Kasukuwere, has thrown out a request by Victoria Falls Municipality to be exempted from salary cuts. Last week, the town’s management said they would meet Kasukuwere to ensure that they are not forced to comply with a government directive to effect pay cuts but their overtures were rejected.

The Town Clerk’s salary is now pegged at $3,200 in line with new salary scales. The local authority management wanted the government to take into consideration that Victoria Falls was expensive hence it should be treated differently from other councils.

The municipality’s management met Cde Kasukuwere last week and they have been singing a different tune in apparent confirmation that they had hit a brick wall in their plans.

The Town Clerk, Christopher Dube, said the local authority would effect the changes to salaries on March 1 after meeting Kasukuwere.

He could not be drawn into giving reasons for the local authority’s climb-down after it initially indicated that it was seeking exemption from the directive.

Dube told The Chronicle that decision would be adopted at a full council meeting on March 1.

“We’ve agreed to abide by the government directive and salaries will be reduced with effect from March 1. We’re taking the matter to the general purpose committee and it’ll be adopted at the council meeting,” said Dube.

“We would have done it but we wanted to take it to full council first because we wanted authority to inform staff.” The salary scales for the other council managers could not be ascertained immediately. Dube could not be drawn into giving details.

The government capped salaries in 2014 and stated that they should not exceed 30 percent of council revenues, but there has been resistance to the directive. The government’s move was aimed at ensuring that the bulk of funds go towards service delivery.