Members of the civil service have expressed disdain over the exclusion of housing and transport allowances in their 13th pay cheque.
Civil servants have vowed to take industrial action to register their displeasure should the government not consider paying their bonus in full.
This uproar follows an announcement made by the finance minister Mthuli Ncube last week as he presented the national budget that this year’s bonus will be computed based on the basic salary.
President of Zimbabwe Nurses Association Enoch Dongo told CITE in an interview that Ncube has breached an agreement that has existed between the government and nurses over the years.
Dongo said the nurses’ union is in the process of engaging the government to address their dissatisfaction over the issue.
“What the minister did is very ridiculous! Over the years the government has constantly been increasing our allowances instead of the basic salary. This has been an advantage to them as this prevents us from getting a substantive pension amount,” said Dongo.
“What hurts us most is now they have made a unilateral decision to cut the little that we live on. We tirelessly render our services to the government throughout the year and this is how they thank us,” fumed Dongo.
“Is this the reason why the minister rushed to give us our bonus? He honestly cannot stand in front of a whole international community to announce they have given civil servants a bonus. They gave us nothing. That amount is nothing. It is unfair. They can not treat us like that,” said Dongo.
Takavafira Zhou, President for Progressive Teacher’s Union of Zimbabwe echoed the same sentiments citing the government has up to December 31 to pay the teachers their bonus in full.
“The government has greatly erred. This is a sign the government does not appreciate efforts made by teachers in carrying out their duties,” said Zhou.
“What the minister of finance did is illegitimate, you can not just wake up and say you are cutting off housing and transport allowance bonus provisions. It is unfair to the teachers,” he said.
“If the government does not pay our money in full by December 31, then teachers are not going back to school in January 2019. We deserve better treatment than this,” said Zhou.
