There was an outrage this past week in Mutare after it emerged the city council’s 2000 strong work force has gone for a record five(5) months without pay and there are no signs of them getting paid any time soon.
This is despite the fact that council collects nearly a million dollars in rates and other services every month, and senior management are paid regularly in full. Figures disclosed to ZimEye state that the town clerk is paid a whopping 15,000 per month of which he is reportedly paid in full to date.
Workers were last paid their normal salaries in March and a surprise pay in July only came courtesy of a local bank which had agreed to give the municipality a line of credit.
The workers are still unpaid for the months of April, May, June, August and September. They are also yet to receive their November 2012 bonuses
The Town Clerk Obert Muzawazi has never bothered to address workers on their plight, workers have charged. The new Mayor Tatenda Nhambarare has not been forthcoming on the same cause and had not responded to calls at the time of writing.
wallow under the hot sun outside Mutare General Hospital
Payments of the workers’ premiums to funeral policies and medical aid have since been stopped.
Workers are now being evicted from their rented properties because they cannot pay.
Workers are complaining that while they are not paid their salaries all senior managers are paid on a regular basis. The managers also embark on a lot external trips to get huge allowances, complaints forwarded state. The least paid worker gets 200 dollars while the highest worker, the Town Clerk reportedly gets 15 000 dollars a month and get it regularly plus other handsome perks like four(4) company cars , a free house, free fuel, fees for his children and a holiday allowance once a year.
Infectious Hospital also failing.
The Mutare city council infectious hospital has also completely run out of food for patients, it has emerged.
The only things available at this clinic are water and drugs. The town clerk is in the salary grade 15 and is said to earn a whopping $15000 per month, while an ordinary nurse in grade 9, earns a paltry $900 per month.
In the picture: TB patients outside the hospital without food.
Auditing not done since 2008
The Mutare city council has also not been audited since 2008 and attempts to perform this task, resulted in the previous mayor, Brian James being expelled by Local Government & National Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo.
Meanwhile it was claimed that their workers committee is more loyal to the management and do not competently advocate for workers’ rights.
16 Replies to “Mutare Fails To Pay Workers 5 Months yet ‘Clerk Lives Large On $15,000 per month’”
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People shld always seek to get the correct facts before publishing falsehoods.
Mutare City, the fourth largest city in the country, has had no Medical Doctor for the last 7 years ansd someone says the T/C is qualified; my f….
Once worked at that place in the 90s after an appraisal exercise which was carried out by an external auditors , it was found out that 3/4 of the staff at the civic centre were not qualified for the jobs they were doing. Many got jobs thru family and friends. During that time employees who were war veterans were causing havoc under the moto we fought for this country, eg not turning up for work, bringing in their families to join the council, My boss at that time had a certificate level qualification and I had a degree. He had no clue of what was to be done during the day to day running if the department and he was earning 19 times what I was getting, had to leave
Chombo scrapped all outstanding bills, so where do you think the money for salaries come from. Obert endesa vana kuAustralia kunodzidza povo ngaimwe mvura yemusakubva river ndiyo Zimbabwe yaMugabe.
You a near Moza,y can fetch water from there!!
stop dis salary we want water in our tapes plz u mutarians why are queit abt nyaya yemvura kuma location kwese hakuna mvura.
A certain bird told me that these town clerks r chosen on political bases. It also said after ZANU PF realised that MDC was controlling command in towns they delt away with the mayoral issue which they knew obviously was gonna be MDC then vested council powers on their man, the CLERK. A mayor is nothing but a name these days.
Makau you are simply making a pathetic defence. The Twon clerk has furthered his studeis aboove an MBA? Which university did you guys go to? It needs pulling down if its going to be proud of this idio who is Mutare Town Clerk! Most likely he is your relative or you are both milking the residents. Get a life, the man is destroying the town and its not about the whole country being in shambles. This is about him and his financial rewards and benefits vis-a-vis employees’ payments!!
An auditor told the Gweru city council that if people are not paid for such a length of time and still report for duty, they are getting their salary from the system. It made sense to me. The workers are ‘milking’ the council. They get paid by customers for falsifying water bills, using council equipment for private jobs. They get cuts from flea market vendors, parking. Only those whoare not ‘resourceful’ suffer.The system has become so corrupt that it needs a complete overhaul. These why bills had to scrapped by Chombo because the workers are doing private collections. Mind you these guys never go on leave.
We should work together as a nation to better our economy instead of playing these blame games. Mutare has majority mdc councillors and some zanu pf councillors, are they also not being paid what they are supposed to be paid?
Thats the problem everywhere. In Mberengwa for example the CEO only got a degree last year when he is about to retire. He and the Chairman loot the council unabated and the equally corrupt acting DA just looks on and is busy building businesses on stolen funds. Its all a shame
I think the authorities need to pay thes e poor workers their salaries.These are parents who have children who need to go to school.The bosses must stop being selfish and start looking at this problems at a broader prospect.Musave vana musvetasimba.Please pay these poor people their salaries for the good of the country!!!!!!!!!!!
I did my MBA with the now Mutare town clerk and you can’t say he is not fit for the job. I am currently earning more than him and I did not further my studies. Get your facts right.
Let’s face the real problem here, its not the councils. The whole country is in shamples.
MDC is in full control of the Mutare city council. the mdc is failing the people of mutare and you wonde why the mdc lost the election
vaChombo muripi??????
Is the Town Clerk qualified to be holding the post anyway? This is the main problem that brain drain brought to Zimbabwe. A lot of important posts are now held by people who are not qualified at all and who have just scrapped through some bush college doing a few uncredited courses. These guys see their jobs as money making schemes and have no passion in serving their cities at all. If Chombo should be firing anyone, its these useless Town Clerks who needs to go. And I mean it; these guys are useless and always take advantage of political confusion instead of rising above it as civil servants.