CIVIL servants yesterday staged a flash protest at the New Government Complex and marched to the Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion ministry offices in Harare, demanding that minister Mthuli Ncube prioritises salary increment in the upcoming mid-term budget statement.
The government workers, under the banner of the Zimbabwe Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (ZCPSTU), a labour organisation representing civil servants, sought an audience with Ncube, saying they had gone for six months without a salary review.
Some of the worker representative bodies present were Zimbabwe Teachers Union, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe National Union of School Heads, among others.
The workers said their earnings had been eroded by inflation, with annual ZiG inflation rising to 92,5% in June from 92,1% in May.
The civil servants want Ncube to address their plight in his mid-term fiscal policy review.
ZCPSTU secretary-general David Dzatsunga said the workers were unable to meet Ncube, who was reportedly away on business, but they managed to have an audience with his deputy, Kudakwashe Mnangagwa.
Dzatsunga said they used the meeting to inform the government of workers’ frustration over the six-month salary stagnation and pressed for urgent action in the upcoming mid-term budget.
He said civil servants were demanding a meaningful review that was in line with the rising cost of living and restored their lost purchasing power.
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“We wanted to deliver our plea to the government that the mid-term budget should include the cost-of-living adjustment,” Dzatsunga said. “We believe that we received the audience that we wanted and we presented our case. We hope that it will yield the results that we want — that the government will consider.”
He added: “We cannot say we have succeeded, but we are hopeful since we have received audience. We don’t want a situation like that of last year, where there was no provision for a salary increment. We have been promised that the relevant government organs — the Ministry of Labour, Public Service Commission and the Treasury — are seized with the matter and we will see how they are going to deal with it. But we explained the urgency of the matter, because since September last year, we have not had a salary review.”
Dzatsunga added that the civil servants also submitted a written statement to the government outlining their grievances and expectations ahead of the mid-term fiscal review.
Part of the statement read: “Honourable minister, the current wages we are getting are failing to meet the basic needs of civil servants and it is our utmost plea that you take cognisance of such needs and factor our welfare in your mid-term budgetary provisions.”
The workers also raised concern over the slow pace of government’s job evaluation exercise, which they said had been used as a pretext to delay salary adjustments.
“Honourable minister, we take note of the ongoing job evaluation exercise. Though we were consulted minimally at a later stage, we feel a lot needs to be done towards the whole process.
“In the midst of us having no cost of living adjustment in the past six months on the pretext that it would be effected once the job evaluation exercise is completed, we are alive to the fact that US$32 million is lying idle for the cause.
“It is our call to you that let that money be channelled towards the remuneration of civil servants as we wait for the completion of the exercise, which in this case, as workers, we have not played a part in its delay,” the statement further read.
Civil servants have on several occasions demanded an audience with the government over a salary review.
Talks under the National Joint Negotiating Council have on a number of occasions ended in deadlock as the government and its
workers failed to agree.
