National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) employees have petitioned the Office of the President and Cabinet over their outstanding salaries and allowances.
The disgruntled employees penned a letter addressed to the Chief Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda detailing their plight.
They noted that since the introduction of Covid-19 allowances which are meant to cushion civil servants from the constantly rising cost of living, they have not received their allocation.
“Public service employees and other government aided institutions have been receiving this allowance for the past three months but as NMMZ we are yet to,” read the letter.
“Our Management has never bothered to update us on the delay in receiving this allowance. This has reduced NMMZ staff to beggars. This is also against the President’s vision, where he is more concerned about the welfare of civil service employees.”
NMMZ workers said their salaries have been delaying as they come two days into the following month and their management has not addressed the delay.
“For the past seven months our Management has not been issuing us with pay slips either and they never formally communicated the reason why,” the letter read.
The workers said due to the financial challenges they are enduring they have resorted to borrowing money for transport to commute to work.
“We love our country and organisation and as custodians of national heritage and culture, we need intervention on this issue so that we can deliver our services effectively,” they noted.
“Our salaries were better handled when we were still under Salary Service Bureau but NMMZ pulled out. SSB was more professional. Our management has totally failed to run our own payroll. We face delays in receiving our salaries, the grading system benefits the managers while the non-managerial staffs languish in poverty.”
NMMZ executive director Dr Godfrey Mahachi confirmed that the organisation is working on rectifying the issue and emphasised that the payments will be made by latest Monday next week.
“We have engaged all the employees and discussed the issue. There indeed are Covid-19 allowances which were still outstanding and by Monday latest the money would have been paid out because all employees are entitled to these funds. I would also like to emphasise that there is no dispute as far a this matter is concerned, it was just a matter of delay in the processes of disbursing money but it will all be dealt with soon,” said Dr Mahachi.
