The Sunday News
Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Sunday News Reporter
THE Government has given the National Joint Negotiating Council (NJNC) the task of coming up with a roadmap that would enable Government to have a salary structure for civil servants equivalent to the dollarisation period amid revelations that it has also honoured its commitment to pay bonuses to all its workers before Christmas Day.
Civil Servants were awarded a salary increase in November after successful engagements with NJNC and all teachers received their salaries after taking heed of Government’s advice to return to work or risk losing their wages.
NJNC is in the process of drafting a salary roadmap that would see Government being able to pay civil servants salaries equivalent to the salary structure of the dollarisation period where they were paid US$500 on average.
Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Professor Paul Mavima told Sunday News that all teachers received their salaries after complying with the Government directive.
Prof Mavima said Government had given NJNC up to 31 January to come up with a salary roadmap that would enable the Government to gradually review civil servants’ salaries.
He said all civil servants had received their bonuses before Christmas day as promised by the Government.
“Everyone (all civil servants) has received bonuses. No one was not paid and all teachers got their salaries. The National Joint Negotiating Council is in the process of developing a roadmap for reviewing salaries in 2021. The roadmap is supposed to be done by 31 January. We have a winning formula going forward,” he said.
Prof Mavima said the Government was having fruitful engagements with workers and it was necessary to avoid antagonism.
“It is necessary to avoid too much antagonism,” he said.
This comes as civil servants have decried what they described as serious infiltration by minority unions linked to opposition parties which they say are forcing some workers to engage in go-slows and strikes to frustrate Government’s engagement efforts.
The Government workers said as much as they are enjoying the Second Republic’s stance on dialogue—there are some unionists who are throwing spanners into the whole initiative.
