Special Presidential Bonus Too Little - Civil Servants

Unions representing civil servants say their bonus in United States dollars is too little as they demand the restoration of their pre-October 2018 United States dollar salaries of $540.

A correspondence from the National Joint Negotiation Committee (NJNC) held on Monday reveals that civil servants will get their bonus including a flat US$200 presidential bonus. It reads:

Payment of the 2022 bonus for deputy director level and grades below will be in US dollars as 100% of gross pensionable emoluments (basic salary, transport and housing allowance. An additional US$200 will be paid to every employee as a special presidential bonus.

The bonus will be paid in two equal tranches across all sectors starting from November, with the latest payment being in December.

Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) president Obert Masaraure argued that paying in installments will further erode the purchasing power of the bonus. He said:

The 100% bonus remains paltry because it is 100% of a paltry income. We insist that salaries should be adjusted to the pre-October 2018 level. Paying in installments will further erode the purchasing power of the bonus.

The parties who signed representing NJNC should be ashamed for sustaining an illegal platform for their own expediency.

Civil servants deserve a genuine collective bargaining platform in line with Convention 154 of ILO, best practices in the region and section 65(5) of our own Constitution.

The naming of an annual bonus as presidential shows that we are not serious as a nation.

What’s so presidential about that paltry amount? Someone somewhere is reducing the Office of the President to a joke.

Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) president Enock Dongo called on the government to release the bonus once and not in tranches. Dongo said:

We want to appeal to the government to pay the bonus at once in one month, not to divide it into two since it’s not much and also we are still asking for more.

The figure presented as a bonus is too little to thank the hardworking employees with.

| NewsDay