Civil servants’ salaries: Mugabe must concede defeat and quit

By Benjamin Semwayo

In stark contrast to Ian Smith’s UDI government, Mugabe’s rule has been punctuated by run-ins with the civil servants. Ever since Mugabe came to power in 1980 he has hogged the headlines because of remuneration-related grievances.

To begin with it was disputes over insufficient pay increases that were not proportional with the runaway inflation caused by the government’s disastrous policies. Government employees have repeatedly taken industrial action over low wages that fell far short of the minimum for survival.

To crush protests Mugabe has repeatedly set his brutal, baton-wielding police force on the defenceless civil servants who were only demanding fair remuneration. The army and the CIO were also roped in to guarantee the successful conquest of the civil servants.

After decades of corruption and misrule the country’s economy is on its knees and the government is failing to pay for many essential services. So acute is the shortage of funds that the government is even failing to pay salaries for its civil servants, the hardworking men and women whose uncompromising devotion to duty keeps it afloat.

The government’s coffers have run dry and it has increasingly defaulted in timeously meeting its payroll obligations. There have been embarrassing delays in paying civil servants, underpaid employees who are compelled to live from hand to mouth by the paltry wages they are paid.

The problems of pay have arisen from Mugabe’s bad governance and although there has been opposition to many of the decisions he makes he has not listened. He has a bloated government that keeps ballooning, with many posts created just to accommodate his cronies who have nothing to show for the hefty salaries they gobble.

He has been advised to have a smaller cabinet that can be supported by the country’s small GDP, but that has not been an option for him because it does not allow him to reward the many sycophants who adulate him and the hatchet men who prop up his government by carrying out criminal activities that keep him in power.

Zimbabwe is one of extremely few countries with two vice presidents, an illogical decision arrived at for political expedience and appeasement rather than for any practical purpose. All that is valuable money wasted on useless, unserviceable posts.

What is worse in the case of Zimbabwe’s vice presidents as that one of the them, Phelekezela Mphoko, has been shamelessly living in the Rainbow Towers Hotel with his wife and grandchildren for more than a year and has resisted all efforts to make him see sense and move into affordable accommodation.

And why he feels his grandchildren, who live with him in the hotel, have to help him squander the nation’s meagre resources, is a huge mystery.

What is worse is that for all the obscene financial advantage he is getting from the country no-one really knows what contribution of real value he makes to the nation. He is like many of Mugabe’s henchmen and Mugabe himself, who are actually paid large sums for taking the country back many decades.

Mugabe has a penchant for going on foreign trips, always accompanied by large contingents whose usefulness is impossible to justify. They have their air fares paid by the state, are booked into expensive hotels and are even allowed generous allowances to spend on their useless trips.

Some of the trips made are to youth meetings where Mugabe attends as the only Head of State, a senile man trying hard to convince everyone of his relevance at a teen-agers’ meeting. Sometimes even the president of the hosting country is not seen anywhere near the venue of the youth meeting.

Then there are the misguided war veterans who have unleashed mayhem on the farms and shut down industries and factories. They have effectively turned back Zimbabwe’s industrialisation clock many decades and are fast returning the country to pre-industrial times, making life unbearable for everyone, all because of their obsession with perpetuating the rule of ZANU PF, a party that ironically has no demonstrable interest in their welfare. It boggles the mind how people can be so benighted and short-sighted.

There is currently a new episode of failure by the government to pay the civil servants who have, as a natural and logical response, resorted to industrial action again. For this the overbearing police and CIO have clamped down on them to deny them their constitutional right to protest against unlawful treatment.

Recently the President of the Rural Teachers Union in Zimbabwe, Obert Masaraure and other union representatives were arrested and assaulted by the police. Doctors are on strike and as nurses are threatening to join them it has emerged that state security agents recently visited Gutu Mission Hospital and threatened to abduct any nurses who joined the strike.

Mugabe would have us believe that he is the only person capable of ruling Zimbabwe despite his glaring failure to deliver as the president of the country. It is for this reason that there have been numerous calls for him to step down.

People from every quarter have demanded that he does the only honourable thing to do and resign, and there is a growing number of people repeating that call. Itai Dzamara made that call and as expected the CIO abducted him. Now he is feared dead. Thomas Mapfumo, Bishop Ancelimo Magaya, Pastor Patrick Mugadza and many more have thrown caution to the wind and called for Mugabe’s resignation.

It is undeniable that Mugabe has overstayed his welcome and must leave office as soon as possible. The onus is on the Zimbabweans to make that that clear to him. Zimbabweans have voted him out of office on many occasions but he has rigged the elections to stay in office. With his ZANU PF party crumbling the time is ripe for every Zimbabwean to rise up and hasten his imminent fall.