Online Reporter
THE upgrade in public service bonuses will provide welcome extra cash for State employees, enhancing their spending power in the festive season.
While the Second Republic has insisted on strict financial discipline and has been making sure that all State recurrent expenditure, which is dominated by the State payroll, and large chunks of the capital budget, especially the parts that do not produce instant additional streams of revenue, are funded from taxes, within that constraint it has been increasing benefits for civil servants.
In previous years, though the figures might have looked nice, sooner rather than later it became apparent that civil servants were getting continually less each month in real spending power.
The Second Republic changed that, and for the first time in a few decades, civil servants are seeing their real spending power rise sustainably.
The starting point was lower than most civil servants were ready to accept, but the Government then, as tax revenues grew continually, retained the same percentage assigned to the payroll, so economic growth was within months seen to be raising civil servants’ pay.
In addition, the Government has been building up other benefits, from fixing the medical aid used by almost all State employees so doctors and hospitals are willing to take the cards again, to housing and other schemes.
With the very high economic growth seen this year, President Mnangagwa used another innovation, the special second bonus, so that civil servants got their share of the extra tax revenue.
To make sure that this bonus was meaningful to those in the lowest grades, he made the interesting innovation of paying every civil servant, from permanent secretaries and their equivalent right down to the people who clean their offices, the same sum. In percentage terms, this is a serious addition to the annual pay of someone on the first rung of the ladder, but still a useful sum for someone on the top rung.
Zimbabwe inherited a grossly unequal society from the colonial days, and while the post-independence Governments have done a lot to remove the worst inequalities.
The civil service always had a less severe inequality environment, but still had some inequalities.
The constant sum not only makes sure that those on the bottom of the ladder get a reasonable slice of the cake but also helps those at the top understand that sometimes it is not necessary for everything to be placed against the pay graph with the biggest rewards going to those on the top of the ladder.
During the very rapid economic growth globally after the end of the Second World War, most countries had very modest gaps between unskilled workers and top managers, the managers earning perhaps just six or seven times the minimum wage.
There appears to be a reaction against some of the worst excesses, exemplified by a potential US$1 trillion pay package for the world’s richest man in certain specific conditions.
These sorts of inequalities are justified by those awarding themselves the large sums as encouraging growth, but since a lot of the actual work done to increase the value of a business or a country is done by those lower down, they also need incentives.
President Mnangagwa appears to have worked out a balance between the two schools of thought.
The ordinary bonus is based on salary and is a 13th payment, varying just as the other 12 vary.
But he has thrown in the extra and made this the same for all so all civil servants can move forward together with no one being left behind.
