Government To Base Future Civil Servant Salary Adjustments On Economic Growth
The government has said civil servants’ salaries will be maintained at 12% of the gross domestic product (GDP), with future adjustments based on GDP growth.
This follows last week’s salary review, which increased the lowest-paid civil servants’ salaries from US$324 to US$364, backdated to September.
However, the US$40 increase is payable in the local ZiG currency, not USD.
Speaking at the Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe 42nd Annual Congress in Victoria Falls, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister July Moyo said the government’s wage bill will not exceed 12% of the GDP. Said Moyo (via NewsDay):
So how do we then make sure that our civil servants are paid adequately? Any country which pays its workers more than 12% of GDP, that economy is in trouble.
So we have adhered to it, we have agreed to it. So we say to the Finance minister, go and calculate, sometime, maybe, you can go a little bit beyond that, but let us remain within the 12% of GDP.
As a government, unlike you, who can measure your productivity in another way? It is who we measure our productivity by, the GDP.
So the productivity of all of the government, parliament, and judiciary everybody, is to save the economy. And we measure our productivity by the growth of GDP.
But if the GDP is growing, that means every year our workers will also have higher salaries. It’s the same as your turnover.
When your turnover is growing, and you say you are going to pay one-third of your turnover to your workers, that means every year they will have something to take home.
Unions representing teachers, such as the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) and the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ), have criticised the pay rise, calling it insignificant and ineffective in improving their members’ buying power.
PTUZ president Takavafira Zhou argued that the combined US dollars and ZiG salary after September 2024 is still below the market value of their previous monthly salaries before the recent devaluation of the ZiG currency.
He also said the government is unilaterally conducting a job evaluation to impose on civil servants.
ARTUZ secretary-general Robson Chere added that their members have rejected the small increment, which he claims resulted from an illegal joint negotiating platform. Said Chere:
The current so-called outcome of the US$40 increment is a nullity. The exchange rate will wipe away the so-called increment as the bank rate is deliberately fixed below the real market rate.
More: Pindula News
