PSMAS chief Cuthbert Dube booted out
HARARE – Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) group chief executive Dr Cuthbert Dube and the society’s board chairperson Mrs Meisie Makeletso Namasasu have been sacked in aftermath of the scandal surrounding their obscene salaries.
Dube who has been at the helm of PSMAS since 1992, was earning $230 000 per month even though PSMAS was reeling from a US$38 million debt.
Mrs Namasasu, a director for Implementation and Control of Expenditure Unit with the ministry of Finance had been on the board for the past 18 years.
Basic monthly salaries for the State enterprise’s 14 top executives gobbled at least US$1 million per month. It was only last week that the PSMAS board resolved to slash Dube’s salary from US$230 000 per month to about US$60 000- a figure that was still way above any other CEO of a Government parastatal.
In a statement released Monday evening, PSMAS board secretary Mr Cosmos Mukwesha said the vice chairperson Mr. Newton Mhlanga was appointed acting chairperson. The statement said since Dube “has reached retirement age, he be retired. Details on the retirement are being worked out.”
According to the shocking salary schedules Mr Enock Chitekedza (operations executive) was earning US$122 000, Dube’s personal assistant and a secretary were earning US$30 000, US$22 000 and US$15 000 00 each while eight other senior directors were earning a basic salary of US$60 000 every month.
Several political commentators interviewed by Nehanda Radio believe the parastatal salaries being revealed at the moment are nothing new and that those in government especially cabinet ministers and their permanent secretaries who run the same parastatals knew exactly what the salary schedules were.
“Everything unfolding right now is a culmination of the power struggles in Zanu PF. The faction that is controlling the state media is trying to embarrass members from the other faction and diminish their political clout. Why do they not just publish all the salaries in all the parastatals,’ one commentator said.
