Civil Servants Say "The 100% Bonus Remains Paltry"

Civil servants have said the bonuses they are set to receive this year starting from November are too insignificant adding that the government should raise their salaries instead.

They are set to receive their bonus in United States dollars including a flat US$200 presidential bonus, NewsDay reported quoting a correspondence from the National Joint Negotiation Committee (NJNC) held on Monday. It read in part:

Payment of the 2022 bonus for deputy director level and grades below will be in US dollars as 100% of gross pensionable emoluments (basic salary, transport and housing allowance. An additional US$200 will be paid to every employee as a special presidential bonus.

The bonus will be paid in two equal tranches across all sectors starting from November, with the latest payment being in December.

Some workers’ unions have since registered displeasure over the amount workers are expected to get. 

Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (Artuz) president Obert Masaraure said:

The 100% bonus remains paltry because it is 100% of a paltry income. We insist that salaries should be adjusted to the pre-October 2018 level. Paying in instalments will further erode the purchasing power of the bonus. The parties who signed representing NJNC should be ashamed for sustaining an illegal platform for their own expediency. Civil servants deserve a genuine collective bargaining platform in line with Convention 154 of ILO, best practices in the region and section 65(5) of our own Constitution. The naming of an annual bonus as presidential shows that we are not serious as a nation. What’s so presidential about that paltry amount? Someone somewhere is reducing the Office of the President to a joke.

Civil servants are demanding pre-October 2018 United States dollar salaries to make ends meet in the face of skyrocketing cost of living.

Zimbabwe Nurses Association president Enock Dongo also said the figure was too little for hardworking employees adding that the government must pay the bonuses in one month.

Private sector workers are also demanding United States dollar salaries.

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