Govt releases August pay dates

By Felex Share

Government yesterday disclosed the August pay dates for civil servants with a significant improvement on the timelines compared to previous months.

Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira said members of the Zimbabwe National Army and Air Force of Zimbabwe would be paid on August 23.

Those in the health sector will be paid on August 26, followed by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police and prison officers on August 30.

Teachers will get their dues on September 2, while the rest of the civil service will be paid on September 5. Pensioners will receive their pay outs on September 9.

Minister Mupfumira said no sector was in a worse situation compared to last month.

“It is a fact that we have revenue challenges but as promised, we have managed to bring forward the pay dates for most of the workers except for teachers who received their July salaries on August 2 and for this month they will be paid on September 2,” she said.

“Just as said by President Mugabe during the Heroes Day commemorations that mechanisms are being developed to ensure workers get their salaries on the traditional pay dates, we are working day and night to improve and meet this target.

“We thank Treasury for working to ensure these improvements come. September dates will be availed as soon as modalities are in place because we want the workers, whom we treasure so much, to concentrate on service delivery.”

“We will also continue engaging the workers, through the official channels, to update each other on the developments that will be taking place. They have every right to know what will be happening and National Joint Negotiating Council meetings will be held constantly.”

According to Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa, the current civil service wage bill, which chews more than 80 percent of government’s revenues, stands at a staggering $260 million.

Previously seen as a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe’s fortunes have plummeted precipitously over the past two decades, to the extent that today the country is viewed as a much-derided basket case.

In 2008, some soldiers looted shops in Harare when their pay was delayed, at the height of Zimbabwe’s hyper-inflation crisis that was triggered by the government’s much-criticised fast track land reforms.

During that horror-laced period, inflation accelerated to more than 500 billion percent according to the International Monetary Fund.