Harare executives to lose perks

SENIOR executives at Harare City Council are set to lose perks such as holiday allowances and school fees for their children studying abroad as the local authority implements a raft of measures to prioritise service delivery.

The local authority has already assembled an independent tribunal to interrogate other labour costs with a view to aligning them with stipulated scales. A Special Full Council Meeting at Town House last Thursday noted with concern the continued pampering of executives at a time when service delivery is at a historic low. In 2015, Government directed all municipalities to adhere to a 40:60 salary-service delivery ratio, but a human resources audit of Harare City Council showed executives were still getting high salaries and allowances.

According to council minutes, “… call allowances (must) be removed from all non-medical executives’ managers (and) the human resources and general committee (must) comprehensively review all the benefits of the executive managers in the 40: 60 ratio.

“The human resources and general purposes committee reviews the issues of holiday and contact leave allowances.

“Invoices for payment of school fees must be produced to prove expenditure of same.

“School fees support must be restricted to Zimbabwe and not abroad. Should one decide to send a child abroad above the cap, the employee should meet the difference.

“In future, all retrenchment packages must be approved by council first before implementation and that concept of buying out staff should stop forthwith.

“City of Harare merges all the following payrolls into one, by end of March, the Executive payroll, the General payroll and the Harare Water payroll.”

According to an audit report sanctioned by the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, in July 2015 alone, the 40 executives at the local authority collectively earned nearly $2,5 million instead of US$369 000 as pegged by the Government.

The audit also showed that seven executive directors earned about $1,5 million instead of $63 000 while performance bonuses for the same executives were inflated to nearly $300 000. The report also stated that council was prejudiced of $170 000 when five non-medical executive managers were awarded on call allowances while about $400 000 was lost through holiday and contact leave allowances. Further information showed that the 40 executive managers were paid education and school fees allowances of at least $550 000.

Human resources expert Memory Nguwi said it is crucial for employees to understand the current economic environment in the country and accept some of the changes.

“Organisations that made changes and adjustments when the multicurrency system was introduced are performing better businesswise,” he said.

“It is those that did not have these changes or adjustments that are now suffering. It is important to explain to the employees, especially if the changes to be effected were contractual.”

“Employees have to understand the economic climate prevailing in the country.”