Mugabe rejects Chinamasa bonus suspension and pay cuts

By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |

Government has reversed planned measures by Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, to cut down on public service expenditure by reducing civil servants’ salaries and retrenching some 20,000 employees.

Chinamasa announced the measures recently during his mid-term fiscal policy review that also proposed postponing annual bonuses for two years and downsizing allowances.

Faced with an angry civil service whose salaries have been repeatedly delayed, Information minister, Christopher Mushohwe, claimed on Tuesday that cabinet had opposed Chinamasa’s proposals prior to the presentation of his mid-term fiscal statement.

“For the record, the…proposals were tabled before cabinet by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development on 12 July, 2016 as part of cost-cutting measures to facilitate economic recovery.

“After extensive deliberations, cost-cutting measures relating to the civil service were rejected and the position of Cabinet is that the Minister of Finance and Economic Development did not take into account the rejection by Cabinet earlier on.

“Once again, at the last Cabinet of 12 September, 2016 the proposals were rejected,” said Mushohwe in a statement.

He added: “The President and Cabinet want to assure the civil servants, the farmers and the public at large that these proposed measures are not friendly operative. It is hoped that this clarification puts to rest anxieties that may have arisen within civil service, the farming community and the public at large.”

It is not clear why Chinamasa went ahead and announced measures that had been opposed by cabinet.

Chinamasa had in his fiscal statement announced that government had embarked on a civil service restructuring exercise to ensure fiscal discipline by reducing employment costs by 60 percent, at a time almost 97 percent of revenue is going towards salaries.

Government is struggling to raise enough revenue to fund key public programmes and projects. For more than a year, it has delayed soldiers’ and civil servants’ salaries and, for the first time, bonuses for 2014 were staggered to as late as August 2016.

In most cases, it has suspended new recruitments and job elevations because it cannot afford the attending costs.

President Robert Muabe and his Zanu PF government are facing growing anger from restless citizens who are calling for a change of government in a country with an unemployment rate of more than 90 percent. Nehanda Radio