Suspending incapacitated teachers is flogging a starved horse - they're victims of mess not the culprits

In 2018 a Zimbabwe teacher was paid US$540 per month in US$. Since then, government paid them the equivalent in local currency but never bother to adjust the amount to keep pace with inflation.

The year-on-year inflation rate was as follows:
2018        10%
2019        255%
2020        557%
2021        92%
2022        30% (projected)

With all the wage increases over the same period the teachers now earn US$ 35 in local currency down from US$540 in 2018.
It is little wonder that the teachers have been asking for the wages to revert to the 2018 level and paid in US$ or paid in local currency but pegged to the US$ at the black-market exchange rate.   

Government has offered 20% wage increase on the current wage paid in local currency plus add on benefit such as allowing to teachers to import cars duty-free. A sick joke! How many teachers earning US$35 per month can afford to buy a car?

It is no surprise that teachers rejected the insulting government offer and voted with their feet - stayed home, missing opening day for the new academic year.

Government has responded and suspended without pay for three months all teachers and officials who did not turn up for work when schools opened on Monday.

There is no denying that this government has thrown the teachers, nurses and other civil servants without the same political muscle as soldiers and others overboard. The teachers' wages have been allowed to slip further and further back compared to the soldiers and Police. Why? They are both human beings with the same basic needs of food, shelter, transport, health care, education for their children, etc. They are both employed by the same taskmaster and paid from the same pot!

Besides, the whole country knows that corruption remains a serious problem, the nation is losing US$1.2 billion per year through gold smuggling. Zimbabwe has the wealth to afford all its people a decent living if only something is done to end the criminal waste of resources through mismanagement and corruption. After the 2017 military coup, President Mnangagwa promised "zero tolerance to corruption"! It is now four years since he made the promise, he must deliver on his promise or ship out!

The idea that government can continue to cut wages of teachers, nurses, etc. – this is what inflation does, it cuts one's wages – and still expect the worker to continue working regardless is absurd. If the fuel tank is empty, the engine will stop; this is exactly what the teachers mean by incapacitation.

Suspending incapacitated teachers will make no difference, it's flogging a horse so weak and feeble it cannot stand much less carry the bloated rider!

Many teachers and nurses have been forced to leave the profession and/or country to seek a living because of the poor wages and working conditions in Zimbabwe. Many of those still working would have left too if there were other employment opportunities; with unemployment rate a nauseating 90% plus, there are no jobs.

Lest we forget, this teachers' strike is disrupting the student's education over and above the many disruptions cause by corona virus these last two years. All these students will be forced to the next grade even if they learned very little these last two years because education is a conveyer belt that does not stop. This is a whole generation that will be playing catch-up and many never will catch-up and realise their full human potential. Never!

Government has kicked the problem of slave wages for teachers, nurses, etc. down the street for donkey years it is crunch-time, address the problem. Government is to blame for this crisis and suspending the teachers is not going to solve anything. Enough is enough!