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Trust Freddy-Herald Correspondent
PERFORMANCE-based bonuses for all senior civil servants will only be effected at the beginning of next year after all evaluations for this year are completed, the Public Service Commission announced yesterday.
In a statement, the Secretary to the PSC, Dr Tsitsi Rosemary Choruma, said senior civil servants from director grades and above will not receive any bonus this year but will be granted performance-based awards at the beginning of next year.
The more junior staff are already being paid their bonuses.
The PSC said under the agreement signed at the recent meeting of the National Joint Negotiation Council, positions of deputy director grades and below will receive the automatic bonuses based on salary as has been the case for decades in the public service.
But senior staff are now given bonuses on how well they have done.
“It is in view of these performance contracts that Directors and above will not receive any bonus in 2022 but rather will, at the beginning of 2023, get performance awards based on their performance for the year 2022.
“These awards will only be extended to directors and above after all evaluations and assessments for the year 2022 are completed, ” said Dr Choruma.
This is in line with Government’s new practice of performance contracting which only rewards satisfactory performance and sanctions non-satisfactory performance for directors and above.
“Government is committed to ensuring that a results-based, high performance, high productivity work culture is inculcated within the civil service. From 2023 onwards, performance contracting, which had only thus far been for directors and above, will also be cascaded to all civil servants of all grades across the board, ” said Dr Choruma.
This comes as civil servants have started receiving bonus payments including the Presidential bonus awarded to employees.
Civil servants will be paid their bonuses exclusively in foreign currency, however, the payment will be staggered between this month and December.
The government adopted performance-based contracts last year, which were initially signed by permanent secretaries and were extended to Cabinet Ministers and heads of public enterprises this year.
Performance-based contracts were implemented in an effort to make sure that all civil servants meet expectations.
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