In yesterday’s edition of NewsDay, we reported that junior teachers are out-earning their bosses. It really boggles the mind what in God’s name is government trying to achieve by instituting a system whereby the supervised earns more than the supervisor.
Claims that government has apparently “abandoned the usual salary grading system” on paying civil servants — to “divide” the government workers who are demanding United States dollar salaries — is a damning indictment on the so-called new dispensation under the second republic.
This unheard of human resource management style is a recipe for disaster; a dangerous proposition which can easily destabilise the entire government system.
Civil servants unions have rightly asked: “How can administrators enforce a good work ethic on the juniors who earn more than them?” Will the juniors even respect their seniors under such circumstances?
It is quite difficult to even imagine what informed this disaster of a policy and why a whole government even had the temerity to approve it and completely throw out the window a workable and plausible payment system that did not cause acrimony among workers.
This is a very bad precedent that exposes the Zimbabwe government as a lawless institution that throws caution to the wind in the hope of solving the wage negotiation logjam.
The reality on the ground is that civil servants’ salaries no longer make sense in Zimbabwe’s very difficult economic environment and paying junior teachers more than their bosses will not wish away the worthlessness of what government is paying both the junior teachers and their bosses.
If truth be told, this is the wimpiest attempt to curry favour with the junior teachers. So if government pays the junior teachers more than their bosses, will this force their supervisors to accept the meagre salaries government is offering them? It is more than crazy to even imagine it.
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We also hear that the same government has reportedly given a 400% salary hike to civil servants in the army and police force, for instance, while offering a 100% salary increment to the rest of the civil service.
This again highlights our sworn position that some of the policies being pursued by the new dispensation under the second republic fly in the face of such mantra as Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo (a country is built by its own citizens).
On its own part, how can government hope to build anything, even a hut, when it is creating serious disharmony within its very own workforce?
What is happening in government completely outshines the biblical Tower of Babel tale that is said to have resulted in the world having all the different languages. In the Zimbabwean government’s case, all one can decipher from this is eternal chaos and destruction of the little the nation had built so far.
What is happening in government can be likened to a headless chicken running around a chookyard hoping to create order among other chickens.
