KWEKWE town clerk Emmanuel Musara has reportedly refused to cut his salary and that of five other senior council managers in line with a recent government directive.
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Musara, who according to Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa earns $7 863 a month including allowances, allegedly told councillors that he could not implement a pay cut directive based on a faulty letter.
Councillor Weston Masiya told a ward budget meeting that Musara told them the letter directing him to cut his remuneration was faulty.
“The town clerk told us that the Local Government ministry had sent him a directive which was addressed to Kwekwe Municipality instead of addressing it to the City of Kwekwe and, therefore, he could not implement a faulty directive,” Masiya told residents.
Masiya alleged Musara told councillors at a recent meeting that implementing the directive based on the faulty letter would mean he would earn the same salary as town secretaries of smaller municipalities such as Zvishavane and Redcliff.
“He said he had since returned the letter to the ministry so that they could correct the anomaly before implementing the directive and until that is done we believe he will continue to draw the salary he has always been drawing from council,” said Masiya.
Kwekwe mayor Matenda Madzoke confirmed that the directive to cut salaries had not been implemented, but differed with Masiya on reasons.
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Madzoke said his council was engaging the Local Government ministry because its directive could not be not implemented.
“The directive instructs us to cut salaries of top management while increasing salaries of low income earners to above poverty datum line,” he said.
“If we do that, our wage bill will go up by more than 100% and that will throw us into a financial deep-end.
“We have, therefore, engaged the ministry so that they can look at the scenarios which will obtain if we implement that directive, so until we settle that issue the directive is still to be implemented.”
