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Dr Gandawa

Pamela Shumba Senior Reporter
THE government has staggered the 2014 bonuses for lecturers and non-teaching staff at the country’s state universities, with the University of Zimbabwe employees having received their 13th cheques on Monday.Workers at the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) have also received their bonuses.

The Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development, Godfrey Gandawa, on Tuesday confirmed that lecturers at the University of Zimbabwe had received their bonuses, adding that the rest would receive theirs soon.

He could not be drawn into giving exact dates of when all the outstanding amounts would be paid out, saying it would depend on the availability of funds at Treasury.

“Initially we had planned to pay out the bonuses for lecturers at once but due to serious financial challenges, we decided to stagger the payments and pay one or two institutions at a time,” said Gandawa.

“We have since paid workers at the University of Zimbabwe and we’re hoping to clear the rest very soon. I can’t give dates at the moment because it will depend on the availability of funds at Treasury.”

He declined to confirm that workers at Zimstat had also received the bonuses, saying they were not under his ministry.Gandawa said despite the economic challenges, the government was committed to fulfilling its obligations to its workers.

“Unfortunately I can’t give dates as to when we’ll be able to pay the rest of the workers but we’re making frantic efforts to ensure that all civil servants are paid their 2014 bonuses and their monthly salaries,” said Gandawa.

“I’d like to appeal to the workers to bear with us as we are working frantically to raise both bonuses and salaries.”

Lecturers resumed work last Monday after staying away from work from Tuesday and they had been planning to down tools again over the non-payment of the bonuses.

The countrywide job action resulted in the suspension of lectures at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust), Bindura, University of Zimbabwe, Lupane, Gwanda, Great Zimbabwe and Chinhoyi State Universities.

Last week Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira ruled out the possibility of a salary increase and announced that the government was in the process of intensifying social dialogue with its workers as it looks at how to reduce the civil service salary bill.

Reserve Bank Governor John Mangudya recently called for a salary freeze this year in his Monetary Policy Statement, saying the country’s economy could not sustain any increases.Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) boss Commis-sioner General Gershem Pasi also called for a wage cut, arguing that the state had erred when it made the initial salary adjustments at the adoption of multi-currencies in 2009.

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

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has, however, rejected the proposal and alleged that there was a conspiracy among top government officials to trample on workers’ rights.