Civil servants deserve better salaries

THE Zanu-led government has neglected civil servants for a number of years which has resulted in one strike after the other.

The last time civil servants got a meaningful salary increase was during the short-lived Government of National Unity. Now we are back to the 2004 to 2009 period in which civil servants wallowed in abject poverty, while ministers and the first family swam in a filthy wealth.

Civil servants drove government operations in the transition period between 2008 to 2009 when there was no real government, they held the system in place.

Civil servants have been neglected for far too long.

Government has millions of dollars to splash on chiefs and Zanu PF youths yet its workers survive on zap naxs which costs 50 cents.

Surely, people cannot be paid millions of US dollars just to chant slogans which are not productive.

Civil servants must demand a piece of the national cake, as they also have families and children who need school fees and other necessities of life. Workers cannot continue to live on crumbs from the master’s table, while their loved families starve.

The civil servants must be taken seriously by all rightthinking people who want Zimbabwe to prosper. It’s time we woke up from this slumber which has seen the country go down the drain and take the bull by the horns, otherwise we will continue to suffer.

On average a civil servant earns a US$1 200 per year, a civil servant’s child at a local university needs US$2 000 per year and yet one Ford Ranger vehicle which the government buys for its senior workers costs US$50 000, a figure more than the fees hence the government considers the luxury of its senior employees more important than the plight of juniors.

If the government can postpone the payment of your bonus, it can as well postpone the purchase of Ford Rangers and channel the amount towards salaries so that civil servants can survive.

Some people have been “eating” since 1980, this must change.

Change can only if people say: “Enough is enough”.

Takuvara