No pay rise for civil servants

THE government cannot afford to increase civil servants' salaries as its annual employment costs have risen steeply from $550 million in 2009 to $3 billion now against falling revenues to Treasury, it has emerged.

The employment costs include those of nine grant aided institutions and pensioners.

In a position paper presented to civil servants' unions during a recent National Joint Negotiating Council meeting, the government said the employment costs had increased six fold since 2009.

The NJNC platform brings together the government and civil servants' negotiators.

"Public Service wage bill has equally grown sixfold from $381 million in 2009 to $2,2 billion in 2015," read the government position paper.

"The main reason behind the rapid growth of the wage bill has been wage reviews and progressive increases in employment numbers and additional ministries in particular during the period of the Government of National Unity."

The government said the size of the civil service had grown tremendously since 2009.

The government assured the workers that they would be consulted before strategies to reduce the wage bill were implemented. This year, the government set up a committee to coordinate the reduction of the unsustainable civil service wage bill. The committee is led by Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa.

Pensioners, who previously received their monthly salaries around the 20th of each month were recently pushed to between 27th and 30th.