THE revelations that the Gwanda Town Council is paying its top managers almost double what a city as big as Bulawayo pays directors only goes to show the extent of the rot in the country’s public institutions.
According to the Gwanda council’s January salary schedule, the top five managers earn a total of $62 826, 25 per month.
Town clerk Gilbert Mlilo is the highest paid with $16 923, 87 per month, almost double what his Bulawayo counterpart Middleton Nyoni earns ($9 439, 19).
The documents show that Mlilo’s basic pay is $6 766, 37 and receives numerous other allowances on top of that which include responsibility ($2 706, 55) professional ($2 368,23), retention ($2 368,23), telephone ($1 014,96), cellphone allowance ($1 014,96) and housing and car benefits of $278,58.
Similar benefits are also extended to his lieutenants, making council’s wage bill unsustainable.
The outrageous salaries have to be viewed from the context that Gwanda is a very small town with little economic activity.
This year and last year, the local authority had a budget of $1,9 million compared to Bulawayo’s revenue budget of $113, 762 million.
Gwanda like all other local authorities in the country is grappling with ratepayers who are increasingly failing to pay their bills and this means that finances are seriously constrained.
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The salary schedule would certainly come as a shock for Gwanda council workers who have gone for months without pay because the local authority is broke. Residents were certainly taken aback because service delivery in the town has been on a downward spiral, with council blaming this on lack of funds.
Therefore, the least the Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo who has been handed the salary schedule can do would be to act swiftly as was the case in Harare.
Harare City Council, which was found to be overpaying its directors, was forced to rectify the anomaly within days after the rot was exposed.
Gwanda should not be an exception and all eyes would be on Chombo since this is a Zanu PF controlled council.
