Gweruin$4m salaryarrears

GWERU City Council is failing to clear $4 million in workers’ salary arrears backdated to four months, a council report has revealed.

The cash-strapped local authority which requires about $1,3 million in workers’ salaries monthly is incapacitated to offset the arrears as it is only collecting less than a million a month, leaving council with a $300 000 monthly deficit.

“Our payroll system consists of three databases namely senior management (grades 13-16) middle management (grades 8-12) and lower grades (1-7). As at July 31, 2017 salaries had been paid up to March 31 2017 hence a backlog of four months totalling $4 080 299,” reads the report.

It also highlighted that plans to retrench some of the workers were in pipeline as council has already adopted a job evaluation exercise report aimed at downsizing the workforce in order to bring down the city’s wage bill.

“There was a job evaluation exercise conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coppers and the report was tabled and adopted by council.

“Council is waiting for the implementation strategy from the partner.”

Gweru which is structured in such a way that it needs 1 486 workers for its full operations is set to retrench at least 500 workers from 1 153 employees. Speaking at a meet-the-residents meeting at town house the city town clerk Ms Elizabeth Gwatipedza said there was need to implement drastic measures to curb the dire situation.

“We are operating unsustainably, meaning drastic measures have to be taken.

“We are collecting less than $1 million which cannot even fix the employment cost,” said Ms Gwatipedza.

Meanwhile, the city which has a total of 2 600 streets lights most of them which are non-functional requires about $ 400 000 to fix them.