Civil servants strike on: Apex

“We are losing patience as workers and this week we expected the Minister of Public Service, Lucia Matibenga, to address us as we had planned earlier, but she sent a letter, which literally did not change anything.”
Ms Chikowore said Apex Council could no longer afford the waiting game, considering that the Government had been given sufficient time to respond to its demands.
“We have no option. The Apex Council submitted its demands to Government on 16 December last year, which should have been met by the beginning of January 2012, but to this date Government has not responded.
“As I speak right now, we are still communicating with our members on tomorrow’s developments and there is no going back,” said Ms Chikowore.
However, Deputy Minister of Public Service, Andrew Langa appealed to the civil servants to shelve their strike, saying it would jeopardise Government’s programmes.
“The strike will not solve anything but simply jeopardise Government’s programmes. I would like to appeal to the civil servants that we are aware that we wrote a letter informing them that we were still consulting our counterparts and the relevant stakeholders.
“I cannot give a date as to when we would be through with the consultations, but I believe that something will be done for the civil servants sooner or later,” said Deputy Minister Langa.
He said it was too soon for the civil servants to stage a strike.
“I think it is too soon for them to stage a strike because they know our position. We know their plight and last year His Excellency, President Mugabe, intervened and they got something.
“If the ministry is failing them, there are higher offices where they can go to settle their issues. Striking is the last thing they should be doing,” said Deputy Minister Langa.
The Government workers are demanding a salary increase of up to $538 from the $253 given to the least paid worker.
Our Harare Bureau reports that Treasury indicated that it had budgeted $1,4 billion including bonuses for 2012.
However, the figure was for all salaries but did not include upward mobility with the civil service.
According to figures presented during consultations, workers’ demands would gobble over $3 billion of the budget, while the PSC’s recommendations would cost Government $2,4 billion in salaries.
“The PSC had also made various recommendations including reintroducing rural allowances.
“Sixty percent of the civil servants are based in rural areas and before dollarisation the workers received 20 percent of their basic salary.
“The civil servants’ demands, according to the PSC through chairman, Dr Mariyawanda Nzuwa, were not possible because of the economic climate.”
The PSC also advised the Government that it could introduce debunching of the grades.
“Dollarisation in 2009 when everyone was getting $100 affected the grading system.
“Each grade, for example an administrative officer and a senior administrator, had a difference of $2 in salaries. In fact, the difference between the salary structures could be just 50c.
“The most senior workers and the lower grade were bunched during the introduction of the multicurrency system and this affected service delivery.
“The 2011 salary review was on a bunched key scale and this affected workers morale and motivation.”
The PSC had, however, recommended an entry point of at least half of the PDL on a debunched key scale.
“This, however, meant that Treasury would have to pump out more money into salaries.
“Treasury did not take the recommendations, arguing that they would need to look into issues such as the fact that increments would cascade to all levels including pensioners.
“Civil servants do not have a pension fund and pensioners are paid through Treasury and the increments would also affect workers on Foreign Missions and Grant Aided Institutions like colleges so there was need to relook at those scenarios.”
These issues, according to the sources, were some of the issues discussed during Tuesday’s inter-ministerial meeting.
The meeting, chaired by Minister Matibenga, agreed that she would issue a statement yesterday after consultations with her finance counterpart.
Taskforce is made up of Minister Matibenga (Public Service), Biti (Finance), Welshman Ncube (Industry and Commerce), Tapiwa Mashakada (Economic Planning and Investment Promotion), Webster Shamu (Media, Information and Publicity) and PSC chairman Dr Nzuwa. – Chronicle Reporter-Harare Bureau.