CIVIL servants are set to beat the “January disease” after Government’s assured all its employees will get their 13th cheque in the first week of the New Year.
Deputy Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Tongai Muzenda said teachers and other Government employees who have not received their bonuses yet should not panic.
There had been speculation that some civil servants were not awarded a bonus following non-reflection of the additional benefit on their December pay slips.
Deputy Minister Muzenda attributed the delays in payment of bonuses to low cash inflows being experienced at Treasury.
“Teachers will be paid their bonuses in the first week of January 2015 together with other civil servants,” he said. “We could have paid them in November or December, but the way they were paid was determined by cash inflows in the nation’s Treasury.
“There was no reflection of bonuses on the December pay notices, because there was a danger of them thinking that they would get their bonuses on the same day they get their salaries. There will be supplementary pay slips on bonuses.”
However, Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association chief executive officer Mr Sifiso Ndlovu said they had not received any communication from Government on the matter.
“At the moment the employer is mum; nothing has been communicated to us so far regarding the latest development. Yes, there is speculation of these developments on social media but we do not want to rely on things that are not directly communicated to us, the statements might not be necessarily true,” he said.
In a statement, the Progressive Teachers’ Union threatened to go on strike when schools open for the first term of 2015 if bonuses are not paid.
“To us this is scandalous. It is a fraud. A month ago (Finance) Minister Patrick Chinamasa, speaking in Victoria Falls, assured the nation that bonuses would be paid,” read part of the statement.
“Without being alarmist, if the Government does not pay bonuses then the annual shut down must continue and no schools will open in 2015.”
Minister Chinamasa told Parliamentarians at a pre- budget consultative conference in Victoria Falls that civil servants would get their bonuses this year despite Government’s dwindling revenue inflows.
Members of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces have already been paid the 2014 bonus. The Sunday Mail
