Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) Diamonds fund civil service pay rise

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Diamonds fund civil service pay rise
20/07/2011 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

CIVIL servants turned up at their banks on Tuesday and received a pleasant surprise after the government kept its promise to improve their salaries by up to US$100, including housing and transport allowances.

Teachers who got paid on Tuesday were the first to benefit from the pay rise which has split the coalition government. Nurses get paid later Friday, while members of the security services who had been paid before the new schedule will receive the difference in their accounts.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti [MDC-T] had insisted as late as last week that there would be no pay increases, despite a promise made by President Robert Mugabe in April when he met union leaders.

Mugabe told union leaders that the government would award civil servants increases in June, raising the salary of the lowest paid government worker from US$128 to US$253. He was out by a month.

Mines Minister Obert Mpofu [Zanu PF] confirmed on Wednesday that they had released an undisclosed sum of money from the Marange diamond sale proceeds to Biti’s ministry, which would almost certainly have supported the pay increases.

Sifiso Ndlovu, of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association, said: “It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. Our members are happy that their situation has been improved, however slightly.

“I can tell you that a teacher just out of college took home about US$340 after deductions, which is a marked improvement.”

Ndlovu said the union would give the government “some breathing space” at least until October when Biti begins consultations on his 2012 budget set to be presented in November.

Only last week, Biti was still resisting pressure to announce a supplementary budget to take care of pay increases for the 230,000 public sector workers, arguing that the government was broke.

Biti said he expected this year’s budget deficit for shoot past US$500 million, owing to low revenue receipts and unbudgeted expenditure.

But Biti would at least appear to have won his battle to force the Mines Ministry to remit income from diamond sales to treasury.

Minister Mpofu said: “When we started selling diamonds, we sent all the money to the government. The minister (Biti) was claiming he didn’t get the money, trying to play politics.

“Right now, they were saying they had no money for civil servants but we worked hard to ensure they got money. We are banned from selling our diamonds, but we are working very hard to get money. What we don’t want is for people to use politics to block the country’s path to progress.”

Labels: CIVIL SERVANTS, DIAMONDS, OBERT MPOFU, SALARIES, TENDAI BITI

posted by MrK @ 9:49 PM