Govt to scrap bonuses

The government says it is seriously considering scrapping payment of bonuses to its confrontational civil servants due to lack of resources, taking a cue from  the private sector which operates on profitability. Of late, government has been failing to pay salaries on time, let alone the 13th cheque.

Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa told parliament on Wednesday that he finds it inappropriate that the cash-strapped state is forcing itself to pay bonuses at a time the private sector is failing to pay salaries, let alone bonuses, to its workers.

Chinamasa said this while responding to a question from MDC-T MP for Chinhoyi, Peter Mataruse, who wanted to know why government was failing to remit deductions from its workers to the Premier Service Medical Aid Society (Psmas), and in the process compromising the health care of thousands of public workers.

"I am aware Speaker that there has been a problem on the part of treasury to remit the necessary contributions to Psmas. I am aware this has come about through a lot of pressures on treasury. This is primarily arising from the payment of bonuses. We have had over the past months to pay $172 million towards bonuses at a time when the private sector is failing to pay salaries, let alone bonuses," Chinamasa said.

"So, we need to interrogate these matters as we go forward so that we can give priorities to issues that have been raised by Honourable Dr Mataruse. These are matters,  Speaker, that we are discussing that we should pay bonuses to civil servants when our paymasters are not paying salaries and are not paying bonuses, this shows that there is something to the matter (sic)."

Government has in the past struggled to pay its workers' salaries on time let alone bonuses and it had to stagger the payment of the 13th cheque, which is normally paid in December.

Chinamasa said despite being in February of 2015, he would only be able to complete the payment of the token of appreciation this Friday and source for more funds to meet the February salaries at a time revenue inflows are dwindling.

The minister said the payment of bonuses had affected other critical areas, hence he was proposing a rethink on the matter.

Civil servants contributing to Psmas are in most cases denied medication by private doctors who say they have gone for months without being paid their dues as government defaults.

Meanwhile, Chinamasa shot down a proposal from an MDC-T MP, Thamsanqa Mahlangu, to introduce a new levy for cancer saying the impoverished workers were overtaxed.

The MP said the levy would take the form of the Aids Levy which government compulsorily introduced for all formal sector employees in the 1990s to mobilise funds to fight the pandemic.

Chinamasa responded  by saying he was not supporting the introduction of the new tax.

"The taxpayer is already overburdened and I will be very reluctant to impose such measures," Chinamasa told the legislators.

He said what was critical was for government to grow the economy, which would make mobilisation of resources easy to support all needy sectors of the economy, including health.