“GOVERNMENT has a salary increment offer for civil servants to cushion them from the prevailing economic challenges set to be tabled before a National Joint Negotiating Council (NJNC) soon, acting Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister July Moyo, has said,” reported Nehanda Radio.
“We have heard the plight of our civil servants, especially of prices which are going up. Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and secretary for Finance George Guvamatanga have been able to explain the nature of the economy and arbitrage that is taking place where prices are going up, sometimes without explanation.
“That is why when Government interrogates certain sectors of the economy, again irrationally, you see them reducing prices and the fundamental question becomes why are the prices going up in this economy in the manner they are going? It is impacting on civil servants and the generality of the people,” he said.
So government is blaming “the manufacturers and retailers responsible for arbitrary price increases” for the economic meltdown and the worsening economic situation. How convenient.
Our hospitals and schools are in a deplorable state with no basic equipment and medicine as a result of decades of under funding. Is government blaming manufacturers and retailers for that too!
The root causes of the country’s worsen economic situation are the gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and the country’s well earned reputation as a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. The whole idea of the “new dispensation” following the November 2017 military coup was premised on change; a new Zanu PF party that was willing to address the nation’s problems head-on.
Now it is clear the coup was about wrestling power from Mugabe and his wife and their G40 faction and nothing else.
The very fact that Mnangagwa undertook his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” mantra with such passion and pizazz straight after the 15 November 2017 coup, before he had done anything to convince the world Zanu PF had given up its dictatorial powers, shows just how naive Mnangagwa is. He genuinely expected the investors and lenders alike to flood back into Zimbabwe on the basis of his word that Zimbabwe was open for business.
After blatantly rigging the recent elections Zanu PF confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state and sealed the nation’s fate of any meaningful economic recovery. Investors, local and foreign, do not do business in a pariah state; we should all know this by now after all the decades of economic decline under Mugabe’s pariah state.
Who would want to invest in a country in which one has to queue for fuel, food, money, etc. and whenever things go wrong they are the scapegoat of the regime. Mnangagwa called those responsible for price increases “gluttonous opportunists” at the Zanu PF conference last month!
“The conclusion of this discussion is that they (workers) should now, whether immediately or tomorrow, go into negotiations where Government will make an offer in terms of ameliorating the plight of the civil service in the areas that they have demanded, that is in transport, salaries and other non-monetary issues such as housing,” said Minister Moyo.
Of course, he did not reveal the salary increase government is offering to avoid having to answer the question: where is government get the money from! The country’s revenue collection base has been shrinking because of the worsening economic situation and the regime has been looking at ways to reduce its expenditure not to increase it!
At the heart of Zimbabwe’s worsening economic situation is the problem of bad governance, exemplified by the blaming of retailers for the country’s ills and not the failure to lift the curse of pariah state.
Zimbabwe must implement the democratic reforms designed to give the people back their freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Free, fair and credible elections is the only sure way to end the curse of rigged elections and pariah state.
We need to break the vicious cycle of rigged elections and bad government of the last 38 years. Zanu PF rigged the recent elections and allowing it to remain in power will only help perpetuate the system. The regime must be told in no uncertain terms that the mandate to rule the country comes from the people in a free, fair and credible elections. Since the party rigged the recent elections, it is illegitimate and must therefore step down.
If Zanu PF is allowed to stay in power to the 2023 elections, then we can be 100% certain the party will rig those elections too! The party must be forced to step down now to allow time to implement the reforms if the next elections are going to be free and fair.
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Members of the Apex Council — the voice of the civil servants — remained adamant that their employer should pay their salaries in the elusive foreign currency or face a crippling industrial action. Members of the Apex Council — the voice of the civil servants — remained adamant that their employer should pay their salaries in the elusive foreign currency or face a crippling industrial action.
Progressive Teachers Union in Zimbabwe (PTUZ) secretary-general Raymond Majongwe said it was disappointing that teachers left the meeting empty handed.
“All we did was raising our issues — the teachers concerns and government cannot blame us for not showing up,” said the militant PTUZ boss.
“All they could tell us was that dialogue will continue but we have had dialogue for too long a time hence our most important point that we are putting across is that teachers are too incapacitated to return and turn up for duty (today).
“So as far as we are concerned, the workers will decide the way forward as the meeting was just promises, promises and the lectures that we have always had from the Reserve Bank and economic departments of the ministries and nothing concrete,” fumed Majongwe.
There is a limit to how much deceitful bluffing one can do and get away with it. In Zimbabwe, that limit was reached a long time ago. Teachers are getting 500 Bond Notes a month convert that to US$ at 3:1 gives US$166. So to get the teachers to the poverty datum line of US$650 per month government will have to pay them another US$484. A 291% salary increase for the civil servants is unlikely.
Zanu PF will never admit that is has failed and has no clue what to do to get the nation out of the mess. All the party knows is how to rig elections and stay in power regardless of the democratic wishes of the people. We need to do is put our foot down and demand the restoration of the people’s meaningful vote. It is wholly unacceptable that Zanu PF should hold the nation to ransom.
“This is not about a Zanu PF or government issue alone. It is about all Zimbabweans having to put our heads together to get the country going. The workers who are striking are not demanding to be paid by Zanu PF but by government and the employer is engaging them now so it will be unfair to say government has failed now. We cannot pre-empt what the outcome will be,” Simon Khaya Moyo, the ruling party’s spokesperson, told the Daily News yesterday.
Poor Khaya-Moyo the reality that Zanu PF has failed and cannot think of the way out is finally dawning on him! He once boasted that Zanu PF will rule until donkeys have horns and now that is looking increasingly unlikely!
DRC Opposition Party Declares Itself Winner Of Chaotic Presidential Election Whose Results Remain Unannounced.
Poor Africa how can we make progress on anything when we cannot even make progress on something as basic as the holding of free, fair and credible elections!
Zimbabwe is stuck with a corrupt anf tyrannical regime, and has been for the last 38 years, because of the failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. Zanu PF has rigged elections in the past and the nation, fearful of the regime's violent reaction has never dared to challenge the vote rigging and opted to appease the regime by letting the party rule. It was a big mistake and the nation has paid dearly for it.
Zanu PF greed for power and wealth has been insatiable and brought economic ruin to the nation. Today the nation stands on the very edge of the abyss with unemployment a nauseating 90%, basic services such as clean running water and health care all but collapsed and 75% of the population living on US$1.00 or less.
To get out of the political and economic mess Zimbabwe is in the nation needs to revisit the issue of elections and insist on the restoration of the people's freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote. We must say no to rigged elections and mean it.
Zanu PF rigged last year's elections, the party has no mandate to govern and it must step down!
Most former white owned farms were given to Zanu PF chefs who still live there and call them their own. Why the Zimbabwe taxpayer is being asked to compensate the white farmers and not those who benefited from the looting beggars belief!
Most former white owned farms were given to Zanu PF chefs who still live there and call them their own. Why the Zimbabwe taxpayer is being asked to compensate the white farmers and not those who benefited from the looting beggars belief!
Mr Charamba said Cde Mnangagwa, who is the ambassador for maternal and child health, has been involved in humanitarian work for a long time and no amount of name-calling will change her unique character.
Zimbabwe is facing total economic meltdown because of 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. Auxilia Mnangagwa is First Lady only because her husband rigged the elections and not for the first time. Of course, she knows that her husband and Zanu PF have been rigging elections and even killed over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and retain the Zanu Pf dictatorship.
Zimbabwe’s health care has all but collapsed; the Mnangagwas and all the other chefs have stopped using the local hospitals and clinics for their health care needs a long, long time ago. How ironic that Zanu PF is rigging the elections, denying the people a meaningful vote on who will rule the country and who will be the First Lady, for the purpose of imposing Auxilia Mnangagwa as First Lady and Ambassador of a collapsed maternal and child health service!
Recently, ZESA revealed that theft and vandalism has cost the power utility a total of $4.5 million since August last year.
Measured daily, at least three transformers were being stolen every night.
As a result, the country needed to replace a total of 4 000 transformers lost and damaged due to vandalism.
The country’s leaders are the biggest vandals and they have gone scot free all these years. With unemployment at 90% it is little surprise that some people have now turned to vandalism as a way of life and, no doubt, in the view of graduating and become a Zanu PF or MDC leader some day!
GOVERNMENT’S much-awaited meeting with civil servants representative groups on Monday failed to yield any meaningful outcome with some union leaders who were part of the indaba saying the event was turned into a boring lecture on economics by their employer.
The economic environment is not right for any meaningful economic recovery; there is corruptio, the country is still a pariah state, etc.; and whilst the economic meltdown remains on the cards there is little the government can do to improve anyone's life! It is no surprise that nothing meaningful came out of the meeting.
“Government will make an offer in terms of ameliorating the plight of the civil service in the areas that they have demanded,” said Minister July Moyo.
People like July Moyo, Emmerson Mnangagwa and the rest of the Zanu PF leaders have been at the very heart of government for the last 38 years and know how bad things are out there. They know to pay the junior doctor a poverty datum line salary of US$650 the government will have to increase their 385 Bond Notes or US$129 (at 3:1) by 400%. To say nothing of the money government will have to spend to make sure hospitals and clinics have medicines, ambulances, bandages, gloves, etc. And yet to listen to July Moyo, one would be forgiven to believe government will have all these things done.
Only a seasoned Zanu PF politician would make such a sweeping promise, knowing fully well government has no money to meet even a fraction of the demands, and yet have no qualms of the consequence of failing to deliver on the promises.
In the 2013 elections the party promised to create 2.2 million new jobs in the next five years. The country lost more jobs than it ever created in the next five year and, as expected, the people never held the party to account. The party went on to rig the 2013 elections and then the 2018 elections that followed; the people had no democratic say whatsoever, never did.
Yes junior doctors, teachers and all the other civil servants must press even harder for their just demands for a living wage. We, the ordinary people, must join them in demanding that government properly fund our hospitals, schools and other basic services that have all but collapsed.
At the heart of all our demand is the demand for a government that is democratically accountable to the people. At the heart of all our demands is an end to the culture of rigged elections which has given this Zanu PF regime the arrogance to ignore our demands in the past with impunity.
@ Sibanda
The regime has "heard the plight of civil servants" and you would think government is finally going to offer the the civil servant a living wage! Not a chance!
Former national healing minister Moses Mzila-Ndlovu has said only widespread protests against the President Emmerson Mnangagwa government was the only way to save the country from total collapse.
The call by Mzila-Ndlovu comes at a time separate mass protests have been organised by the MDC and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) as public disenchantment against the Mnangagwa-led administration continues to grow.
"The general public should forget about things ever getting better in Zimbabwe, since Mthuli Ncube has openly declared that they should brace for harder times," Mzila Ndlovu told Southern News.
"Things can never get harder than this … they have been thrown into poverty and things will continue to go deep as long as Zanu-PF is in charge of this economy," he said.
I agree 100% that the economic meltdown will only get worse because Zanu PF has failed to address the essential requirements such as ending corruption, lifting the pariah state curse, etc. for meaningful economic recovery.
I do not agree that mass protest was the only way to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. If MDC leaders had implemented the democratic reforms agreed at the on set of the 2008 GNU we would be talking of a totally different Zimbabwe, one in which there are free, fair and credible elections. It is a great pity that even now with the benefit of hindsight MDC leaders like Mzila-Ndlovu are still hiding behind their fingers and will not admit that they sold-out big time on reform!
MDC leaders are arguing the people to join in the street protest to remove Zanu PF from office so that they, MDC, can take over. We are all supposed to assume that MDC leaders will not sell-out again!
This country needs honest leaders to move forward and not the corrupt and murderous Zanu PF thugs or MDC sell-outs!
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