Zimbabwe civil servants threaten to down their tools over pay disputes

Civil servants in Zimbabwe have vowed to go on strike on January 1, 2016 owing to pay disputes with the giovernment. The workers sent a strong message to the government on Tuesday, that they would take industrial action as they wait for January 5 to receive their December salaries and bonuses which they claim haven’t been paid on time, reports the country’s newspaper The Herrald.

The paper further reports that the country’s Eomic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa last week had unced that the December salary payment date for all other civil servants, health workers included, had been moved from December 29 to January 5.

Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZiNA) general secretary Mr Enock Dongo said nurses understood the difficulties faced by the Government in financing its operations.

“Let it be known that our meagre salaries cannot stretch beyond the 31st of December 2015 as we had made budgets with pay dates in mind,” the daily quotes Mr. Dongo.
“As such, we would like to announce that as of 1st January, we do not have transport money to go to work which simply means that we will be home starving without even food and rentals, not mentioning money for school fees, “ he concludes.

Zimbabwe’s economy has been on a downturn for more than a decade since veteran President Robert Mugabe oversaw the often violent eviction of white farmers under controversial land reforms.

The economy shrank by about 40% between 2000 and 2009, and government wages now suck up about 80% of government revenue.

Angola

Elsewhere in Angola, the capital Luanda was paralyzed on Tuesday for the eleventh consecutive day by striking employees of public transport, who were demanding to be paid their nine-months wages.

Several hundreds of the 1,900 employees of TCUL (Urban Collective Transports of Luanda) have over the recent days been gathering outside the transport headquarters, waving placards written: “Nine months without pay is too much,” or “Up when this suffering? “
“Over the past nine months, a dozen workers died of illnesses since they didnt have monet to pay for medical care,” says Epalanga Domingos, deputy secretary general secretary of the transport workers union.

Neither the leaders nor TCUL regulators have so far made public statements.

Angola which is highly dependent on oil exports (75% of tax revenues of the country and 90% of exports), is bearing the brunt of cash crunch after the prices of black gold.