adminYeukai Karengezeka Herald Correspondent
Harare City Council has allocated 305 stands to its employees to offset salary arrears.
The development comes at a time when the city is struggling to pay workers who are reportedly owed three months’ salaries.
The city is understood to be processing February salaries at the moment. Sources say about 4 150 employees were promised residential stands in lieu of outstanding salaries in 2016. Recent minutes of a meeting of the education, health, housing and community services and licensing committee show that the acting human capital director Retired Major Matthew Marara reported that the city had so far allocated 305 stands in Mabvuku.
“The acting human capital director reported that very little progress has been made, only 305 stands were allocated to employees in lieu of salary arrears,” he said.
“The 305 stands were in Mabvuku and the site plan had 600 stands, but after survey, the stands were reduced to 305.”
Rtd Major Marara said other workers would be allocated stands at Eyrestone Farm. Town clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango told a full council meeting that the city was paying salaries for the month of February.
“We are making progress in terms of paying our workers and right now we are paying for February,” he said.
He said the local authority was getting low revenue against a high expenditure bill due to the current economic environment.
“The market is not in a good state, our expenditure has gone too high,” said Eng Chisango.
“Although on average we are collecting $13 million a month, we are spending over $20 million because prices for goods and services continue to fluctuate. We are doing our best to channel revenue collected to salaries and it should be noted that we are also owing our suppliers apart from the workers.”
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