LIVINGSTONE MARUFU
Government workers have tabled fresh demands to be paid about US$600 a month owing to a volatile environment which has resulted in prices of basic goods and services rocketing, Business Times can report.
The majority of the government workers are currently earning about ZWL$22 000 on average a month, and US$75 Covid-19 allowance in hard currency, which is just a fraction of the poverty datum line of ZWL$75 000.
The civil servants have been pushing to be paid the pre-2018 salary of US$520 a month.
Apex Council chairperson, Cecilia Alexander, told Business Times that the government workers are now demanding US$600 a month.
“We have moved from the pre-October 2018 demand of US$520 per month to US$600 per month due to the ever-increasing prices of goods and services,” Alexander told Business Times this week.
“So, to curb that volatility, we now need to be paid in US$ which is a stable form of a currency. But I don’t think it will come this month and a phased approach towards the new salary cap will see a worker getting a real value of his or her wage.”
The prices of goods, Alexander said, were now indexed in US dollars, except salaries.
The Zimbabwe dollar continues to lose value against the United States dollar.
This week, the Zimbabwe dollar was trading at ZWL$240 to the United State dollar on the parallel market. At the auction system the local dollar was trading at ZWL$112 to the greenback.
The low pay means most civil servants have been impoverished and the majority of the government workforce are now regarded as the working poor.
Alexander said the payments in US$ will reduce pressure on the parallel market as civil servants, who form the bulk of the labour force, will pay US$ for goods and services.
At a National Joint Negotiation Committee meeting that took place two weeks ago, Alexander said the workers demanded that the government pay their salaries in US$.
It is understood that the government team appreciated the workers’ reasons for sticking to their position of an inflationary and sustainable solution to the salary circus, upon which they asked for time out to consult with their principals.
It was also agreed that this was an urgent matter and should be resolved in the shortest time possible.
Alexander said the government asked for more time to discuss with principals and promised that another meeting may happen “any time this week.”
The civil servants are optimistic that the government will hear out their demands and give them a reasonable share of US$.
Efforts to get a comment from Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare minister Paul Mavima, were futile. His mobile number continuously went unanswered .
Analysts say the call by the civil servants to be paid in United States dollars amplifies calls for the redollarisation of the economy.
Finance minister Mthuli Ncube has said the economy would not redollarise and is pushing for the currency arrangement in which the local unit and the dollar are used in transactions.