Gokwe employees go for ‘16 months without salaries’

GOKWE Town Council workers are up in arms with the local authority over unpaid salaries dating back to last year.

The workers said they have gone for 16 months without salaries and were contemplating taking legal action against their employer who they accuse of not showing any commitment to settling the arrears.

A worker who spoke on condition of anonymity said the workers were going to approach the Labour Court to seek recource.

“We are dragging Gokwe Town Council to the Labour Court because we have gone for 16 months without a salary. We are finding it difficult to take care of our family obligations and responsibilities. We are failing to pay school fees for our children and rentals. What worsens the situation is that the local authority does not show any commitment to settle the outstanding salaries,” said the employee.

Gokwe town secretary Ms Melania Mandeya attributed the delay in the payment of workers salaries to dwindling revenues.

Ms Mandeya, however, said it was not true that the workers had gone for 16 months without salaries.

“We have heard of those rumours that are going around where workers are claiming that they have gone for 16 months without salaries. Those are lies. At one point the residents association wrote a letter to us demanding that we pay the workers’ salaries. I do not dispute the fact that we sometimes delay in paying their salaries but we have been paying them in batches while in some cases we were staggering the payments,” she said.

Added Ms Mandeya: “We are owed a lot of money by our residents in unpaid water bills and rates. Whenever we get money we pay our workers. It is not like I’m refusing with the money but the resources are not permitting, we have not been spared the economic challenges facing the entire nation and most local authorities have been limping due to the dwindling resources.”

Ms Mandeya said those who were peddling falsehoods were not workers but people with ulterior motives.

“There are some councillors who want to tarnish my image,” she said.

Gokwe Town Council has 75 workers.