The Sunday News
Harare Bureau
THE Government has begun streamlining its huge wage bill, retrenching officials and freezing posts at all its foreign missions over the past few weeks. A 2015 civil service audit identified idle manpower, role duplication, unco-ordinated staff recruitment, flagrant abuse of overtime allowances and leave days, and salary fraud as chief cost drivers. Auditors projected US$388 million could be saved yearly through staff rationalisation. Though our Harare Bureau could not at the time of writing determine where else the axe has fallen, the Foreign Affairs Ministry has laid off mostly embassy clerical staff with more to follow.
Zimbabwe has 42 foreign missions, and these contribute to civil service salaries and allowances that are gobbling at least 83 percent of national revenue. In the first half of 2015, Treasury spent US$1,54 billion on labour against revenue of US$1,718 billion. US$120 million goes to salaries monthly, with the least-paid taking home about US$380.
Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi told our Harare Bureau last week that leaner structures would be pursued as embassies were struggling financially, with some ambassadors still driving vehicles purchased in the 1990s.
A parliamentary delegation that recently visited Kuwait heard that Zimbabwe’s chief diplomat there, Ambassador Grey Marongwe, was owed US$127 000 in salary arrears.
Minister Mumbengegwi told our Harare Bureau, “We are reducing staffing levels at all our embassies to enable us to continue functioning. In fact, we have streamlined all our embassies. The ministry understands the challenges we are going through and these are being attended to. It is imperative to appreciate the need for resources. The vehicles that some of our ambassadors are using are old and breakdown regularly. That is an embarrassment to them and the country. The Foreign Affairs Ministry is a service ministry. It is, therefore, important to give (our ambassadors) a good image. We have been failing to meet our administration costs, though.”
Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association secretary-general Mr John Mlilo advised Government to consider other expenditure-cutting alternatives. The IMF Staff Monitored Programme underscores a healthy salary-revenue ratio as key to improved economic performance.
