The government of Zimbabwe recently offered to pay civil servants an additional US$25 in addition to the US$100 they are already paying civil servants at the moment. This will increase the US dollar component of civil servants to US$200 as civil servants also receive a US$75 COVID-19 allowance. The rest of their salaries will be paid in RTGS. The government has said there will be no other pay increase. This was revealed by unions representing civil servants in salary negotiations with the government of Zimbabwe.
The employer offered an increase of 25% on the USD100 to make it 125USD and maintained the USD75 Covid allowance to make the total USD package USD200 with effect from the 1st of September 2022. The workers acknowlesged the increase but chose to wait for specific modalities on how this is going to be implimented. The employer did not offer or table any increase on the ZWL salary and the workers demanded that this be also reviewed without fail. In the end the governmend side asked for time out to consult.
Part of the letter written by Zimbabwe Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (CPSTU)
Civil servants are unlikely to be happy with the fact that their Zimbabwean dollar salaries are not going to be reviewed this month. While the government can claim that black market rates have slowed down considerably over the past two months officially the Zimbabwean dollar has been losing value. The official rate has risen to above $600 ZWL per 1 USD which means that officially civil servants now earn less than they did at the beginning of August.
Then there is also the fact that the government has been happy to rubber stamp various price increases including the very controversial University of Zimbabwe fee hike. The government has been on the other hand reluctant to review salaries so that they keep up with inflation. On a positive note, the government also committed to paying civil servants their USD bonus this year although they did not commit to any specifics.
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