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Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
Treasury, through the Salary Service Bureau, has with effect from last month taken over the payment of salaries for diplomats in various missions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure that employment costs for Government are captured at the same time.
Diplomats had accrued salary arrears spanning several months as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs juggled with several administrative commitments after receiving disbursements from Treasury.
Principal director in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development Mr Zvinechimwe Churu told legislators yesterday that while salary arrears for the diplomats would be cleared owing to the new payment method, new fiscal challenges were likely to emerge.
He was fielding questions from portfolio committee chairpersons during a capacity building workshop organised by the United States Agency for International Development Strategic Economic Research and Analysis -Zimbabwe.
“We are now paying foreign missions through SSB,” said Mr Churu. “Normally, when you make provision for something in the budget, something else suffers.”
Foreign Affairs portfolio committee chairperson Cde Kindness Paradza (Zanu-PF) welcomed the decision, saying it would go a long way in motivating Zimbabwe’s diplomats.
Chegutu West MP Cde Dexter Nduna (Zanu-PF) said if diplomats were not paid, there was a risk that they might work against the interests of the country.
Mr Churu said they were analysing an audit carried out by the Public Service Commission aimed at reducing the wage bill through duplication of duties.
Legislators had said there was a lot of duplication of duties in various ministries, something they said if addressed could reduce the wage bill that was taking the bulk of the budget. Mr Churu said while Government was analysing the audit by PSC, there were legal implications where their trade unions had to be engaged should there be need to terminate contracts.
“The wage bill is not an easy area to tackle, but it will be addressed one day,” he said.
Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda had rapped legislators, saying examples of issues they ought to raise were reason for justification for paying ward coordinators and youth officers that were idle.
He said having one officer at district level could be ideal.
Adv Mudenda said the presence of Mr Churu was not an opportunity to put him in the dock, but to raise pertinent national issues.
“We have ward coordinators who are sitting, doing nothing,” he said. “There are also youth officers who are idle. These are the issues that you need to raise, to say instead of dismissing them, can’t they be funded so that they form cooperatives?”
Earlier on, Adv Mudenda castigated legislators for failing to take their representative roles seriously.
This was after a handful of MPs had read and brought an Economic Literacy Handbook with them, despite the fact that it had been deposited in their pigeon holes in June.
The handbook, a collaboration of Parliament and development partners, had been prepared for yesterday’s workshop.
“We commit ourselves as you saw when you were sworn in to be loyal to your responsibilities,” said Adv Mudenda. “The work of Parliament rests with portfolio committees. That is the heart of Parliament. If the heart is not pumping blood, the whole body is dead.”
Giving a brief about the workshop on behalf of USAID SERA-Zimbabwe, Mr Rongai Chizema said the Economic Literacy Toolkit was a strategic resource towards strengthening the legislators’ knowledge base.
Online Reporter