Public Service Minister on Question Time
Public Service Minister, Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro, is the guest on Question Time and tackles questions sent in by SW Radio Africa listeners using facebook, twitter, skype, e-mail and text messages. Journalist Lance Guma poses the questions including why government is unable to offer civil servants a salary increase? Where is the revenue from the diamonds going? When will results of the civil service audit be released? He also has some choice words for Zanu PF apologist Professor Jonathan Moyo.
Interview broadcast 23 February 2011
Lance Guma: Hello Zimbabwe and welcome to Question Time. Our guest this week is the Public Service Minister Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro. Listeners were encouraged to send in their questions using facebook, twitter, skype, e-mail and text messages, Professor Mukonoweshuro, thank you for joining us.
Eliphas Mukonoweshuro: Thank you.
Guma: Now the issue over civil servants’ salaries has obviously invited the most number of questions from our listeners. The position you have taken as a Ministry is that the government has no money to meet current wage demands. Confusing for many people were reports that Mugabe had intervened and offered to use money from diamond proceeds to fund a wage increase. Now Jessica, a teacher in Kuwadzana, wants you to clarify this matter.
Mukonoweshuro: Well in the first place I would like to say that the Ministry of Public Service has not taken any position. The reality is that we are willing as a government to pay civil servants a salary that is commensurate with the responsibilities that they face on a day-to-day basis. A salary that enables them to look after all their general welfare needs.
But it has not proved to be possible because of the meagre resources that are available and the very low levels of revenue flows into the Treasury. I have said from time to time and that message has been buttressed by the Prime Minister, that we continue to strive at every point and turn to ensure that we pay our civil servants a living wage.
We have come a very long way. We have come from nothing. From nothing we have graduated to a monthly allowance and we have been moving gradually up to where we are now and we will continue to do so until we reach a stage whereby we can say there is acceptable regional comparison between what our civil servants get and what the rest of the civil service in the region get.
Guma: Is it a case of the government feeling it would be reckless to increase salaries as this would fuel inflation? Or it’s a case of you as government not having the money at all?
Mukonoweshuro: It’s not a question of the government actually being prudent about anything. The reality of the matter is that there is no money available. If one was to look through the budget which was presented by the Honourable Minister of Finance in December and elaborated by him during the months of January and February, one would realise that there is no budgetary line item which has got excess fat whereby we can cream off what we can perceive as excess and pay civil servants. There is nothing. It’s a situation of shared misery. All the budget line items are equally stressed so there is no money at the present moment which we are reserving for anything at all.
Guma: Do you think you have been successful in communicating this message to the unions because they do not seem to be convinced?
Mukonoweshuro: Well I have met the representatives of this Staff Association at every point in turn, at times at their request, at times at my request and I have communicated this message loud and clear that there is no way at the level of the current revenue inflows that we can pay a wage that is regionally comparable at the present moment. This is not just a policy of the Ministry of Public Service or the Ministry of Finance or that of the prime minister. It is a reality.
There is no money at the present moment. Unless of course people are saying we would prefer to go back to the old days where money was being printed and at the end of the day a whole salary was not sufficient to pay for the trip back home from the bank or to pay for a loaf of bread. And as responsible leaders, we are saying no. Where we are is a desirable position compared to what has been.
Guma: Now this debate over salary increases for civil servants, are you not as the MDC being set up by ZANU PF? Godfrey Manhenga in Harare says – you are sleepwalking into a trap and ZANU PF is trying to win support from civil servants at your expense as a political party?
Mukonoweshuro: Well if ZANU PF has got the money let them bring the money forward and let civil servants be paid. We have only one minister of Finance in the country whose responsibility is to ensure that government revenues and government expenditures are well cared for. But if ZANU PF has got a secret pocket of money somewhere, then let them come out in the open, let them produce that secret pocket and we’d be more than happy to distribute that money to the civil servants.
Guma: What about the much talked about diamond revenues? There seems to be a lot of throwing of political snakes at each other over money from Chiadzwa. As far as your ministry is concerned – what have you been told? Is there any money that, or some huge dividend that has been declared which you could use to pay civil servants?
Mukonoweshuro: The money that I am aware of which has been shown to me by the minister of Finance is well accounted for and the minister of Finance, the responsible minister, Honourable Biti did not hide anything from anybody and he has made public the amount that he has received from diamond sales and it’s no more than 64 million dollars since the first auction of diamonds and that’s not sufficient to pay the kind of wages that we would want to pay our civil servants.
At the present moment our monthly bill of salaries is around 120 million US dollars. So you can see, you can see that there isn’t any excess set anywhere which we could cream off and pay civil servants. Some people can say we are sleepwalking into a trap – well that is your opinion but the reality of the matter is as far as legitimate government revenues are concerned which are being administered by Mr Tendai Biti there is no money that is available other than that which we have paid.
As I have said that if ZANU PF is saying there is money, let them come out openly and say where is the money, how can the minister of Finance as the legitimate officer responsible for superintending all government finances so he can access that money and pay civil servants today and not tomorrow.
Guma: We have a listener from Chipinge who does not wish to have their name mentioned but their question is does it now make sense to you why a lot of people were reluctant to support the MDC taking on most of these social security and finance ministries because they always felt you were being set up from the very beginning? ZANU PF was focussing on the security ministries and they were giving you all these ministries where for example now, the perception is that you are being blamed for not paying civil servants enough?
Mukonoweshuro: Well anybody who is watching the situation now in Zimbabwe should in actual fact be happy that the MDC has taken care of social ministries because our record proves for itself. Where people were getting nothing at the beginning of the inclusive government they began to receive value in terms of the allowance and substance salaries. Where hospitals were closed and there were no medicines, there are medicines and our hospitals are functioning.
Where schools had been closed and teachers had run away, schools are open and teachers are back. So you look at each and every sector where we have been responsible, we have been able to reverse the tide and in a matter of weeks, something that had taken nearly 30 years to destroy, we have been able to do that in a matter of weeks.
When we came into power on the 13th of February as a cabinet there was not a single cent from which civil servants could have been paid. We ran around in a couple of days and we were able to put together a hundred dollar allowance for each and every civil servant to be paid by the end of January.
Yes – it might not have been enough, we could not work miracles but we worked with something, we were able to transform rubbish, from receiving rubbish to receiving value. So we have in actual fact acquitted ourselves very well. Well if people prefer to go back to the days when ZANU was printing money and they had absolutely nothing to show for it, well it is their choice, this is a democracy.
Guma: The MDC MP for Nkulumane Thamsanqa Mahlangu asked you why it was taking so long for the figures of a civil service audit to be presented to parliament. Ancillia Chimuti in Harare has a similar question on the timetable for this given your ministry received the report in November 2010.
Mukonoweshuro: The people who have asked that question already know the answer why, because I have spoken about this issue on more than three occasions in parliament now. The report of the civil service audit was commissioned by cabinet and therefore it was incumbent upon me to execute the task and report to cabinet by presenting a report to cabinet. That has been done.
Cabinet is still to deliberate on that report. It would not be proper for me to present to the legislature an issue that was originated in the executive and an issue that the executive has not conclusively discussed. That is the situation. It is not procedural for me to take to parliament a report that has not been considered by cabinet and I don’t set the agenda for cabinet.
The agenda for cabinet is set in the office of the president and cabinet. And until that has been done, it will not be possible, it will not be procedural and it would not be constitutional for me to proceed and take that report to the legislature.
Guma: So I assume there is no timetable, you are just waiting for those two offices that you’ve mentioned to proceed with setting the agenda and deliberating on it?
Mukonoweshuro: Yes, I have presented the report to the principals and outside cabinet, and the principals are well briefed about the contents of that report and so I now await the process of putting the report on the agenda of cabinet so that it can be discussed and policy can be formulated from the findings of that report.
Guma: Now it’s already estimated, several press reports are estimating that there are 75000 ghost workers on the government payroll. Edward Sithole from Masvingo has a question on the integrity of the exercise saying is this not simply going to become another tool for the parties in the coalition to fight each other over?
Mukonoweshuro: Well I have no idea about the agenda of the other party but I am very clear about the agenda of the party that I represent in government – that is the MDC-T. We have no desire to play political football with issues of such a sensitive matter and we are anxious that the public process should be executed quickly so that we can move on and see how we can have a look at the structure of our civil service, how we can have a look at the structure of our payroll so that our country can benefit from its most critical resource – that is the people who work for it.
Guma: Now Professor Jonathan Moyo has already suggested that the only credible and acceptable public service audit can be done by or under the auspices of the Public Service Commission which is meant to be an autonomous constitutional body empowered to manage the public service without any influence or direction from any authority whatsoever. What’s you reaction to him?
Mukonoweshuro: It’s nonsense. It’s absolute nonsense for anybody to say that. In actual fact it is very difficult to work with people who think like that. The public service audit was meant to audit the record of performance of the Public Service Commission so how can a person in their sober senses say that the Public Service Commission was supposed to audit themselves? It is absolute nonsense for anybody to say that and I do not in fact wish to even comment further on such patent nonsense.
Guma: We of course have another question from Bulawayo – this is Maxwell. He says you have already identified the ghost civil servants, why don’t you get rid of them in order to pay genuine government workers better wages?
Mukonoweshuro: Well I would not want to comment in that greater detail because doing so would be commenting on a report that is still before cabinet. What I am saying is that cabinet is still considering the findings of the auditors and as soon as the cabinet has completed that exercise they will formulate a policy which will then guide government action.
Guma: But in all likelihood, this would be the way to go – get rid of the ghost workers and then pay the genuine workers a decent wage?
Mukonoweshuro: I have already said that I cannot make such a comment because I will be revealing what is in the auditors report and I’m not at liberty to do so. All I can say is that government through cabinet is studying the report and as soon as that process is complete people will see a policy flowing in smoothly from that exercise.
Guma: Well Professor Mukonoweshuro our final question comes from Mutare. The listener does not wish to have their name read out but their question is – you are the secretary for international relations in the MDC, a couple of days ago or weeks we saw the EU easing targeted sanctions on members of the Mugabe regime. Now the state media obviously have made a lot about these sanctions and this listener would like clarification from you on what is your stance as a political party towards these sanctions because the messages have been very confusing and they’re not very sure where you stand as a party?
Mukonoweshuro: The messages have not been confusing at all. The position of the MDC has always been that the restrictive measures that have been applied to the ZANU PF government before the formation of the inclusive measures represent a reading of the countries of Europe, a reading of the United States of America, of New Zealand, of Australia, a reading of the relationships that they had with that government.
It is up to them to formulate their own foreign policies towards various countries of the world, Zimbabwe included. We are not party to the process of foreign policy formulation of the United States, the EU, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. We are not. It is up to them to devise what kind of foreign policy they would have with any particular country. We hold no brief on anybody as far as the targeted measures are concerned, vis-à-vis those countries and ZANU PF.
Guma: Well Zimbabwe, that was the Public Service Minister Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro joining us on the programme and I’m sure you will be happy that he has tackled the many questions that you sent in and many thanks to you Professor for joining us this week.
Mukonoweshuro: Thank you very much.
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