Zimbabwean social media is awash with a picture showing the recent payslip of a soldier. The viral image shows that some soldiers are getting around $3 700 ZWL as their salary. Meanwhile the poverty datum line for is somewhere north of $6 500. It was $6 420.87 ZWL in March accodring to ZimStat.

In essence this means that soldiers like most civil servants are earning well below this line. When computations are done using the prevailing black market exchange rate of around $80 ZWL per 1 USD the earnings equate to $46 USD.

The prices of basic commodities have kept up with the black market exchange rates which is where most businesses get their foreign currency from as the formal market has all but dried up.

soldier_payslip

The viral image of a soldier’s payslip

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