Shocking salaries for city bosses

Harare City Council directors are earning 'obscene' salaries at a time when the municipality is failing to pay low level workers and battling to provide basic services to the capital, The Zimbabwe Mail can reveal.

On Tuesday night, the city's top brass was held-up in a fire-fighting meeting to manage a backlash from the workers who, on Monday, had picketed at Town House demanding their November and December salaries. Some of the

workers reportedly got staggered salaries, while the majority were yet to be paid.

Impeccable sources said council directors and managers were living large, while low-level workers wallowed in penury. Council has 49 directors and managers.

Town clerk Tendai Mahachi reportedly leads the pack with a staggering $18 000 monthly salary, a $2 000 weekly entertainment package delivered every Friday in cash from the struggling Harare Water, a division of the council.

Besides the salary and entertainment allowance, the council pays Mahachi's electricity and water bills, and also pays for his maid, security guard and gardener.

The city also provides Mahachi with an unlimited outside travel allowance and school fees for his children to a school of his choice, among other perks.

The town clerk also gets a new top-of-the-range vehicle every four years. Mahachi is now driving his second SUV which he took delivery late last year for $190 000.

This is Mahachi's second car since he joined council as town clerk in 2007 on a four year renewable contract.

Josephine Ncube, the city chamber secretary, is said to be taking home in excess of $17 000 monthly, on top of 200 litres of fuel and unlimited airtime.

Ncube was last year allocated a Jeep Cherokee purchased from a local car dealer for $117 000. City public relations executive Leslie Gwindi, who is in Grade 3 salary range, allegedly gets $15 000, excluding perks and allowances.

Gwindi also serves as the chairperson of the city's football team, Harare City. Mahachi and Ncube could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Gwindi could neither deny nor confirm his pay-cheque.

"You have just said there is going to a meeting and that is so. Why don't you wait for the results of that meeting then we will talk," said Gwindi.

The city's executive payroll, according to sources, draws $600 000 monthly. Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni confirmed that an urgent meeting was called for late Wednesday to deliberate on the top brass' salaries and the impending workers' strike.

"We are going to meet later (Wednesday) and some of the issues you mentioned will come under discussion. As for figures I am going to have a look at the contracts," Manyenyeni said curtly.

He declined to discuss the matter further. On Wednesday local government minister Ignatius Chombo met Manyenyeni and Mahachi and demanded the top brass' salary schedule.

"I met earlier with Manyenyeni and Mahachi. I ordered them to provide me with a schedule of top management salaries, the accounts in which then salaries are paid and the originating accounts in which the money is drawn," Chombo told The Zimbabwe Mail late Wednesday.

"Failure to do that, they will not be paid this month." Service delivery has dwindled to pathetic levels with the city's road network in a deplorable state, while council directors were sitting pretty.

The capital is currently failing to provide portable water to most suburbs with the threat of tropical diseases such as cholera and typhoid looming large.

Meanwhile, today the government is expected to table proposals for civil servants salary adjustments as the workers await to see what the employer has to offer.

Zimbabwe's Teacher's Association chief executive officer, Sifiso Ndlovu said he was hoping that government would offer them an acceptable adjustment.

Workers representatives are demanding that the least paid government employee should earn not less than the poverty datum line, which the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe pegged at $540.