'Bonuses not a right,' says Jonathan Moyo

HIGHER and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo has said some workers - including civil servants - seeking bonuses do not deserve the 13th cheque as they were "non-performers and drunkards".

Moyo, posting on his micro-blogging Twitter account on Wednesday, said payment of bonuses should be for extra performance at work and not an entitlement.

"Well, I'm sympathetic to the view that a bonus should be for extra performance & not an entitlement!' and ‘Leaving your jacket in the office to go & booze is not a legitimate basis for expecting bonus as an entitlement!'" wrote Moyo on his Twitter account.

But, Apex Council president Richard Gundane said Moyo's comments were in "bad taste and reckless".

"This is a very careless statement which shouldn't have been made when people are expecting their bonuses. This is irrelevant because this is a universal matter for civil servants," Gundane said.

Apex Council is an umbrella body which brings together all public sector unions.

"When we speak, we don't speak on behalf of one person, but the entire public service. You cannot just choose to zero on one person or one issue that would have happened in one office because that will be unfortunate. We don't supervise employees in the civil service as employers themselves do that and deal with specific cases at that level."

Gundane also said the bonuses were "well deserved and should be paid", adding the Apex Council did not condone laziness.

Yesterday, Moyo, however, told NewsDay that he stood by his remarks as the statement was not only targeting civil servants, but all classes of workers.

"This issue is a legitimate and very serious debate that we should have as a nation with open minds outside cheap politics," Moyo said. "My opinion is that in a modern economy such as ours, a salary bonus should be only performance-based. There should be no entitlement to a bonus regardless of one's performance."

The Higher Education minister added: "The specific comment in question was made in a specific debate only and only to amplify this important point without any reference to any class of employees or workers. While some participants in the debate made references to civil servants, I did not do so."

He also said he only made a general point to say that bonuses based on entitlement as opposed to performance were wrong.

"They [bonuses] could be abused by workers who just come and hang their jackets in the office and go boozing only to claim bonuses at the end of the year along with other workers who work hard with proven performance and results," Moyo said.

He said a government audit in 2014 found that there were people on the civil service payroll drawing salaries without coming to work at all, while some of them were found to be living outside the country.

"All of these absentee civil servants were paid bonuses in December 2014 as an entitlement without any performance. That can't be right by any stretch of the imagination. No! No! No! We have a Results-Based Management System in the civil service and it would be hugely progressive to implement it without fear or favour to determine whether a bonus is deserved across the service," Moyo said.