Government must clampdown on excessive salaries

By Tichaona Sibanda

Big payments to chief executive officers (CEO’s) running parastatals that are failing have been described as ‘greedy and unjustified’ by analysts.

This comes at a time when it has been revealed that suspended ZBC chief executive Happison Muchechetere was earning a basic salary of $27,000 along with monthly allowances that brought his salary up to $40,000.

Muchechetere was also entitled each year to five business class air tickets with his family, three air tickets within the region and unlimited air travelling in Zimbabwe.

The ZBC was also paying off his mortgage and building a durawall and an entertainment centre at his Borrowdale mansion.

Economist and former ZBC journalist Bekithemba Mhlanga said the cancer of excessive CEO pay is at the core of Zimbabwe’s economic woes, and it demands government attention.

Mhlanga told our weekly Hidden Story program that this particular cancer—which has been growing rapidly over a decade—is at the core of many of the country’s economic ills.

‘ZBC has seen dramatic falls in profit for many years and there is no business case for such a payment. ‘At the same time that workers are losing their jobs and having to go for months without pay, while too many CEO’s are still getting massive payments which is unjustified,’ said Mhlanga.

Another economic analyst, Luke Zunga, said the message that needs to get through is that this sort of behaviour is immoral and totally unacceptable. SW Radio Africa