Clive Thabo Dube
EARNING peanuts has became a noose that is chocking civil servants to death who, of late have realized their sector is more like Treblinka.
For years, civil servants have been mounting up pressure on the government for better remuneration paid in the United States dollars, not in installments nor in the unstable local currency. The issue has been a cat and mouse rumble between the two and with the obstinate government not carving leaving civil servants to jump off the ledge.
Police officers who risk their lives protecting the citizenry on a daily basis and teachers who meticulously mould future leaders feel neglected by their employer. Throwing in the towel seems to be the only available option for the public service providers in the past few days, sending shock-waves and tremors across the country.
The tragic demise of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Officer Francis Patama who hanged himself at Parirenyatwa Hospital, Harare and a deputy headmistress of Sarahuru Primary School in Mwenezi has left a subsidence crater in the circle of civil servants.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) has sent an unambiguous message imploring government to act with clemency on workers’ salaries now more than ever.
“It’s really sad, infact these are the only few reported cases but we believe there are more cases similar to these ones…This issue of RTGS is no longer working, if you look at the way inflation bites and hits, left, right and center eroding salaries on a daily basis. It’s just unbearable.
“Infact these days paying a worker in RTGS is as good as not paying that worker because we are seeing the black market rates pegging US$100 over ZW$ 1million. When people are paid around ZW$ 100 000- 300 000, how then do you make a living in such a situation.” Said Ambrose Sibindi, ZCTU Western Region Chairperson.
Sibindi said the only way out of this problem is for the Minister of Finance, the Cabinet and the President to stop the use of the slumping local currency and dollarise. The move will be a significant financial package for workers.
“Let salaries be paid in the US dollar. If they decide not to get rid of the local currency, fair and fine but all that we are saying is that salaries must be pegged in United States dollars. Because if you look at all these companies are charging their goods and services in US dollars but when it comes to workers they pay RTGS. This is not working, this inflation is unbearable.” He said.
Rampant ZW$ depreciation has caused psychosis in what’s left of Zimbabwe’s working class, triggering suicidal tendencies. Unions have pointed a finger at the employer whose failure to provide adequate emolument to employees has driven public servants which are prone to self deletion to their death bed.
Sibindi added that, the inability to take care of ones’ family despite waking up every day to go to work fuels suicide.
“Workers cannot be sacrificed as sacrificial lambs. Our demand is very clear, let our government pay all workers in US dollars, it will be an answer to stopping these suicides were are witnessing. If this is not done, we are going to lose more lives. People will hang themselves because they can’t fend for their families. Its so frustrating when you get home, see that your child and wife are hungry, and you can’t provide. Its unfair, in such a situation as a worker or parent you feel that your life is not worth living. Then you take your life because you cannot watch your family suffering like that.”
The death of the ZRP officer and the deputy headmistress is a cautionary tale and an eye opener to the Zimbabwean government who need to address the problem urgently.
In the past few months, workers from Chronicle, a Zimpapers government controlled newspaper stable, complained of the inadequacy of their local currency salaries.
Such complaints cut across the civil service providers who are the few workers to be paid in the dead local currency. Pensioners are the most affect as well.
Poor wages and poverty is becoming the major catalyst for suicides in the country.
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