Zimbabwean civil servants reject bonus freeze..

The Zimbabwean government has decided to suspend bonuses for 2015 and next year. That is how bad the economic situation is! Universities have been told that the government will pay workers 50%  of their wages and the other half the university is supposed to look for it on their own. Companies have been retrenching and some closing due to lack of resources to pay workers. 

Civil servants however rejected the decision and demanded that they be paid their dues that are equivalent or more than the poverty Datum line which is pegged at $505. 

TRADE unions and opposition political parties have condemned the government’s decision to suspend civil service bonuses for the next two years, describing the move an insult to workers and the height of Zanu PF’s failure as a government to run the national economy. How can a country which claims to have 25% of the world’s diamonds fail to pay 300 000 poorly paid workers..?The pronouncement on the scrapping of civil servants’ bonuses is one such move which speaks volumes about this dismal failure.”

Finance minister said this was a way of creating fiscal space to stimulate full economy recovery.  The Zimbabwe National Students’ Union also condemned the harsh measures introduced by the Ministry of Finance to curtail the civil service wage bill which currently draws 80% of the national fiscus.
Both unions and opposition parties argued that the government could have cut its wage bill significantly by removing all 75 000 “ghost workers” from the payroll.

Finance and economic development minister, Patrick Chinamasa