Civil servants payday, Chinamasa paints a gloomy picture

FINANCE minister Patrick Chinamasa yesterday painted a gloomy picture over the future welfare of civil servants when he admitted in Parliament that government was failing to maintain consistent pay dates for its workers because there was little revenue inflow into Treasury.

Chinamasa said he had to wait for receipts from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) every month, making it difficult to know the exact date government would pay civil servants.

"I would want to advise the MPs that we are running on a cash budget and it means that we wait for receipts from Zimra before we can disburse money to meet obligations of government, including salaries of legislators and civil servants. If resources are unable to meet those obligations, then we have to wait. What you are talking about is necessitated by exigencies of our circumstances," Chinamasa said.

Civil servants used to receive their salaries around mid-month, but currently their pay dates have been inconsistent, triggering fears that government might eventually fail to raise the salaries as the economic downturn continues unabated.

On indigenisation, Chinamasa said: "We want to reap the benefits of exploiting those assets with respect to sectors outside mining and we have recognised there is conflict between policy pronunciations, and yesterday Cabinet took a decision that we should align indigenisation and empowerment laws with our policy pronunciations as pronounced by the President and the Minister of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Francis Nhema," he said.

Chinamasa also told the House that the remuneration audit to curb mega-salaries and graft at State enterprises would be done first on those organisations suspected of serious corruption.