Comment: Heed IMF advice on salary increments

Tendai Chikowore, leader of The Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta), faces a possible revolt from groups of unhappy members of her association.

Angry teachers affiliated to Zimta accuse her of playing too softly with government negotiators and have threatened to join the militant Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) which, with support from the lecturers’ union, has already called a strike to force government to improve the teachers’ pay.

It is not in dispute that civil servants are underpaid, given the country’s poverty datum line of over $500 — and it is also true they have waited, patiently and for a very long time, for government to deliver on its promise — to revise their salaries.

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