Council cuts working days to ease wage bill

Patrick Chitumba Midlands Bureau Chief
THE Gweru City Council has cut to two-weeks the working schedule for its workers in a bid to tame the ballooning salary backlog and contain the monthly wage bill.

Finance committee chairperson councillor Albert Chirau yesterday said the council was also considering offsetting outstanding salaries by offering willing employees residential stands.

The council has a two-months salary backlog and four months for management.

“We’ve started the two weeks in two weeks out working schedule, which is aimed at addressing the salary backlog,” he said.

Chirau said the wage bill stands at $888,000 per month, which accounts for about 72 percent of council monthly income.

He admitted the cash-strapped local authority was struggling to meet its salary obligations.

“We hope that soon we would’ve cleared the salary back log if we continue with this new working schedule,” said Chirau.

Reports indicate top management at the municipality was gobbling up to $38,000 per month, $350,000 for middle management and $500,000 for the rest of workers in salaries.

The council on average collects $1 million per month.

Chirau said salary advances, which were routinely requested by the employees, were gobbling up daily cash income.

“There has been a culture of salary advancements at the local authority and these are affecting our operations. They’re like a parallel payroll system which should be done away with,” he said.

In a memo dated March 4, 2015 addressed to the chamber secretary, the assistant director of finance, Michael Verenga, noted that the influx of salary advancement applications was putting a serious strain on the council’s cash flow management.

Management has since recommended that only 10 applications be processed per day to ease the burden on daily income.

“We shall process a maximum of 10 applications per day and the others will join the queue pending their turn. This has been necessitated by the fact that we’re withdrawing all our daily collections just to pay advance salaries,” said Verenga.