IT is wholly understandable that Zimbabwe’s civil servants are disgruntled, dissatisfied and infuriated at their employer because of the substantial inadequacy of their remuneration. 
The minimum wage payable to civil servants is marginally less than US$250 a month, which equates to approximately 46% of the current Poverty Datum Line (PDL). This results in all but the most senior civil servants battling to support themselves, their families, and other dependants. 

Not only does the considerable inadequacy of their salaries aggravate the civil servants, but their annoyance and fury has been exacerbated by the absence of any substantive evidence of concern, on the part of the employer at their plight.

 
Diametrically opposed to having real concern, responsible ministers have on several occasions failed to attend wage negotiation meetings and last week the employer made a contemptuous offer of a paltry US$7 increment. 

Amongst the consequences of the employer’s near total disregard for the civil servants’ concerns and demands has been that a significant majority of them have resorted to strike action.

However, on the other side of the coin is the incontrovertible fact that government simply does not have the resources to respond positively to its employees’ demands, or to do so even partially. 

The state employs approximately 235 000, although 70 000 of them are believed to be ghost workers, though it is incomprehensible that a country with a resident population of approximately 12 million should require such a gargantuan civil service. 

Those 235 000 civil servants’ emoluments consume, despite their inadequacy, approximately 64% of the national budget, leaving a grievous insufficiency of funding for several other necessary governmental spendings.  Effectively, to cite an old saying, government is “damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t!”.

Whilst the civil servants deserve sympathy and understanding, and a meaningful enhancement of their remuneration packages, they do not wholly have right on their side. 

Firstly, demanding minimum remuneration equal to the PDL is unrealistic in the extreme, and cannot credibly be justified. 

The PDL, amounting to approximately US$545 in December 2011, represents the minimum cost of living for a family of six.  However, in such a family unit, there are generally at least two income earners, even if one of them may not be engaged in formal employment, but generating income in the informal sector. 

Assuming, therefore, that the one is generating 60% of the family’s income and the other produces 40% of that income, a public service demand for a minimum wage equal to 60% of PDL would be credible and justifiable, and would currently amount to approximately US$327 per month, as distinct to a demand for US$545 per month.

Secondly, the civil servants’ negotiators for the remuneration increase studiously disregard the harsh fact that an employer cannot pay that which he or she does not have. 

Government, on its own admission, is bankrupt, with vast unserviced and unmanageable debt.  On the other hand, it is already over-taxing the private sector, which continues to be beleaguered by numerous and diverse economic ills and constraints.  Therefore, it cannot resort to yet further taxation measures in order to fund any significant increase in civil servants’ remuneration. 

Thus, the civil servants are demanding the impossible, and resorting to industrial action or work stoppage can in no manner enable government to access additional resources in order to yield to the demands. 

Instead, such strike action further cripples the much-stressed economy, and that will impact negatively upon inflows to the state and, therefore, to its ability to service even existing packages.

Thirdly, the civil servants need to take cognisance that their demands have other adverse economic consequences, in that diverse trade unions and other labour representative bodies are motivated to emulate the public servants by also demanding wages aligned to the PDL by resorting to destructive industrial actions in response to employers’ refusal to yield to those demands. 

The result is that the civil servants are endangering an already weak economy, albeit only indirectly so, without their actions being able to bring about fulfillment of their demands.

Whilst obviously not pertaining to all in the public service, it is undoubted that a significant number of civil servants seek to compensate for the inadequacy of their remuneration by resorting to innumerable corrupt actions, not only being unlawful, but also impairing the proper utilisation of government’s limited resources.

This results in the diminishing of the morale of the populace, and further damaging the economy.  The corrupt practices resorted to are varied and have different cost effects. 

They range from the disclosed but not contained employment of 70 000 ghost workers, to the misappropriation of state-funded consumables such as stationery, tools, foodstuffs, and the like, to falsified expenditure claims, and to abusive and unauthorised usage of state assets, such as usage of motor vehicles and concomitant state-funded fuel for non-authorised, private purposes. 

Government needs to vigorously contain the massive revenue losses occasioned by such corrupt actions, and doing so would enhance the revenue of the exchequer and, therefore, ability to pay greater and justified remuneration to the state’s employees.  The tardiness of government to address containment of public service corruption is horrendous, and wholly unjustifiable. 

By way of example, how can government credibly have failed to oust the 70 000 ghost workers, whose existence has been known to the state for 11 months, when private sector auditors identified that government’s payroll included the 70 000 ghost workers?

It would be further possible to enhance public sector remuneration, as well as to fund other essential expenditures which government has heretofore been unable to address, if it would intensively contain many of its existing expenditures. Government must be ready to progressively reduce the excessively large public service. 

The magnitude of delegations repeatedly travelling abroad could be considerably reduced, with a resultant substantial saving on travel costs.  The Finance ministry should energetically strive to convince the political hierarchy that Zimbabwe has far more ministers, deputy ministers and ministries than are required for a country with a resident population of only 12 million. 

A significant reduction in such numbers would markedly benefit the state’s minuscule fiscal resources.  The same would hold good for the consolidation of the country’s diplomatic representations abroad. Zimbabwe cannot afford the considerable number of embassies, consulates, and allied offices that it presently has in Europe, Africa, and the Far East.  And these are but a very few of the many constructive expenditure savings that the state could achieve, provided that it has the will to do so.  The resultant savings would enable more constructive expenditures, such as enhancement of remuneration for the public service.

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