Civil servants demand concrete bonus dates

By Mugove Tafirenyika

HARARE – Fed-up civil servants have warned the government against continuing to give them empty bonus promises, and are now demanding that their employer gives them the exact dates when their 13th cheques will be paid.

This follows last week’s threat by government workers to go on strike beginning yesterday if the State failed to come up with measures to enable them to report for work, as many of them anxiously wait for January 5 to receive their long-delayed December salaries.

So serious is the situation that the respected Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, John Mangudya, has had to move in to placate the restive public servants, promising them that their dues will be paid soon.

But the Apex Council — which represents the entire civil service in the Tripartite Negotiating Forum with business and government — told the Daily News yesterday that it had had enough of the State’s promises and that “we have reached a point where the trust we had is now lost”.

“The promise to pay has always been there and we have always respected that, but today what we are saying to the employer is that, clarify your position and give us exact dates instead of creating this mirage that we are seeing while we continue to suffer,” Apex council president Richard Gundani said.

Gundani added that civil servants would be coming up with a definite position on what course of action they would be taking at their meeting scheduled for Tuesday next week, after affiliate unions would have made their resolutions on the matter.

“Individual unions are making their resolutions which they will report to the Apex council and it is from that meeting that a definitive position will be taken,” he said.

A desperate Finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, announced last week that the December salary payment date for many civil servants had been moved to January 5, as State coffers continue to dwindle in line with the country’s dying economy. Daily News