SDCs must play their part

EDITOR — We thank His Excellency, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, for his unwavering and principled stance on the issue of bonuses. Families of thousands of teaching and non-teaching staff under school development associations/committees have directly benefited from the President’s stance.

Rightly or wrongly, the private sector has and will always take a cue from Government in terms of bonus payment although the sectors are different.

Most schools paid 2015 bonuses in 2016 after Government had paid bonuses to its employees.

The payments were, in some cases, spread right up to the beginning of the first term of 2016.

We also thank schools that have already paid 2016 bonuses to their non-teaching and teaching staff.

These schools have always religiously paid their employees regardless of what happens in Government. We deeply appreciate such a good gesture.

However, there are some schools that, despite having the capacity to pay bonuses and salaries on time, treat their employees like slaves to the point of paying salaries in bits and pieces and, in some cases, not paying them at all.

School development committees must pay employees’ 2016 bonuses regardless of what happens in the public sector.

These employees deserve bonuses as they are patriots who have worked for Zimbabwe in the face of harsh economic conditions. Mathias Guchutu, Secretary-General National Education Union of Zimbabwe