Some enumerators of the 2022 population and housing census have accused the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) of failing to pay them their allowances, a month after the exercise was conducted.
The census began on April 21 and ended on April 30, 2022, but some enumerators still haven’t received their payments.
In an interview with CITE, some enumerators said they were promised allowances for training and the actual enumeration.
“We took part in the last-ended census as enumerators. We were told we were going to be paid money for training and also the enumeration process itself but this has not happened,” said one enumerator.
“We only received ZWL $68 000 in our accounts instead of the money equivalent to US$720 at a bank rate. Rumours circulated that it was part of our training money, but what about the enumeration money since the period has even ended. We have been inquiring on this issue and no one is saying anything tangible.”
Another enumerator said she has not yet even received the ZWL$68 000 that has been received by other enumerators.
“Others got ZWL$88 000 and ZWL$73 000 for 10 days of training. What is shocking is that we signed the contracts they promised to pay us US dollars. The first contract was written US$1000 while the other was written US$500,” she said.
Contacted for a comment, Zimstat public relations and communications manager, Mercy Dambudzo Chidemo said they have since paid the enumerators the training money and currently processing the field allowances.
“The training money was paid if they haven’t received it, they should get in touch with their provincial finance officers, I am sure they were all given their numbers, so if there are challenges with accounts or something that they check,” said Chidemo
She said the enumeration allowances were being processed last week.
Chidemo added that the enumerators signed contracts that stated that they will receive their allowances in the local currency.
“If they check the contract, it was written that they will be given in Interbank rate, it’s actually a government policy, it is known even in the civil sector, the treasury is paying at auction rate, so I don’t know where they are getting it,” she said.
Its inhumane what is being done by ZIMSTAT. when it comes to its employees they pay using hard usd and burn the funding they received on the black market to pay enumerstors using an overtaken 165 rate.