Making the 2018 National Budget Presentation on Thursday afternoon, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said that starting in January 2018, Government will retire all civil servants above 65 years. He also said that Government will remove duplication of posts in line with the leaner cabinet that has been put in place.
Chinamasa also said that they will proceed to abolish 3 479 youths officers posts. In August this year, former President Robert Mugabe ordered the reinstatement of over 2 000 youths who had been retrenched from Government. Mugabe claimed that they had been retrenched without Cabinet approval.
Chinamasa also proposed measures to cut budget expenditure and these include:
- cut number of embassies from current 46
- no first class travel for govt officials expect the Presidium
- reduction of delegation to foreign assignments
- reduce vehicles for top officials from Permanent Secretaries to one
In 2016 Chinamasa announced that the government wage bill gobbled up 94 percent of the national budget, which is funded entirely on taxes. As part of the Lima Plan, Zimbabwe committed to reduce the fiscal deficit to sustainable levels through the alignment and re-organisation of the public service.
The move to lay off civil servants above the retirement age can be seen as an attempt by Chinamasa to fulfill the obligations so that Zimbabwe gets access to fresh capital from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank. Zimbabwe has so far managed to repay its debt to the IMF.
WhatsApp Group: 
Telegram Group:
The govt must walk the talk. Retire all civil servants over 60 years including those over 50 years in the armed services. Effectively all war vets and generals/commanders will be affected. Good riddance. Okd madalas vangova mutoro on the fiscas. They have outlived their used their usefulness in the govt and are now a burden on taxpayers.
This is a noble move towards reduction of wage bill. However, my question is, why starting at the age of 65?Retire all civil servants from the age of 60.This 60 years old person has a daughter or son who needs a job home, but the door is closed because the the old father or mother is still in the office. 60 years and above should go.
When the developed countries are raising the retirement age to 67 and 70 and you what to reduce it to 60. Where will the social services/pension services get the money from to look after you for an average of 30 years. Our life span is increasing and is now about 90