BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) managers earn a fraction of what their Harare counterparts take home every month, Southern Eye has established.
NQOBILE BHEBHE CHIEF REPORTER
Councillors last week demanded that management hand over a council salary schedule to see how much they earned in the wake of shocking revelations that Harare City Council managers rewarded themselves handsomely despite collapsing service delivery which has seen raw sewage flowing in the streets, refuse piling up in residential areas and road maintenance virtually neglected with potholes on every street.
According to the BCC’s salary schedule, city managers earn an average of $9 000 per month.
Town clerk Middleton Nyoni is the highest earner at City Hall with a salary of $9 439, 19.
Breaking it down, Nyoni’s basic pay is $5 182, transport/fuel ($946,43), housing allowance ($518,20) and telephone allowance of $29. He also gets about $2 763,56 under other cash allowances.
Nyoni’s package is about a quarter of his Harare counterpart Tendai Mahachi who pockets a reported $37 642 a month.
BCC directors and the chamber secretary’s basic pay are pegged at $4 627, transport/fuel ($821,22), housing allowance (462,70) and telephone allowance of $26. A cash allowance of $2 467,58 brings their total monthly package to $8 404, 50.
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The directors are also entitled to other employee benefits not paid as cash such as school fees, medical aid contributions and insurance and cellphone allowances.
A director is entitled to $100 monthly medical aid contribution, $800 school fees per term, $73 cellphone allowance per month and $3 461 in insurance.
The directors include Sikhangezile Zhou (chamber secretary), Simela Dube (engineering), Zanele Hwalima (health) and Kempton Ndimande (finance).
A deputy director earns a total package of $7 462,18 while an assistant director is paid $6 613,42. The salary schedule gleaned by Southern Eye has since been forwarded to Local Government, Public Works and National Housing minister Ignatius Chombo.
A confidential note accompanying the salary schedules circulated to councillors reads: “Following the call (today January 31 2014) by a senior officer in the Local Government ministry to the chamber secretary Zhou directing that a council meeting be convened on Saturday, February 1 2014 to consider the salary package for the town clerk, I submit to his worship the mayor and councillors, as per the minister’s instruction the breakdown of figures and the total remuneration package for the town clerk of the city of Bulawayo.”
Sources yesterday said councillors were surprised when they were given the figures.
“We thought these guys were earning astronomical salaries which are at par with Harare, but they are far less than that, which we found very unbelievable.
“After signing the forms confirming that the figures are accurate, we forwarded the schedule to Chombo,” said a council insider.
Bulawayo has always been regarded as the best run city in Zimbabwe.
