CIVIL servants are struggling to cope with chronic high inflation that has seen prices of various services ranging from medical aid, funeral cover to transport surge while their salaries continue being eroded, a snap survey by The NewsHawks has shown.
AYESHA CHIDEMBO
The government has conceded failure to meet the demands of restive civil servants who want salaries in foreign currency amid worsening hardships that have seen many workers struggling to meet basic needs.
Service providers have increased their charges, piling on the misery of the government workers whose salaries continue to be rendered useless by runaway inflation. Many are opting out of medical aid and funeral policy schemes, choosing to focus on basic survival due to limited resources.
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) spokesperson Chris Kamba said high inflation is making it difficult for workers to budget for basics including food and services.
“There’s no rough estimate of a budget for a family of four or six as from June as prices are changing daily,” he said.
He said the Consumer Council is engaging service providers and manufacturers in a bid to tame the crisis and ensure the struggling workers are rescued from the desperate situation they find themselves in.
“We continue to engage manufacturers and service providers because we believe dialogue brings better results than controls and confrontations.”
“We have also created social media groups for our membership where they share information on where they can access affordable products,” Kamba added.
Under the First Mutual medical aid scheme, cover for two people was previously ZW$13 000 but on 1 July 2022 the amount shot up to ZW$26 000.
Nyaradzo Funeral’s monthly charges increased to ZW$12 000 for policyholders who were previously paying ZW$200.
Observers said the crisis that has hit mainly the civil servants is thw logical outcome of poor governance, successive droughts and poor economic policies.
Civil servants are not the only citizens reeling under the economic crisis; workers in the informal sector are also crying foul as their major clients are usually those working for government who are now in dire straits.
On an average monthly salary of ZW$40 000, it has now become increasingly difficult for government workers to make ends meet.
Mobile network operators have also repeatedly increased their tariffs.
Goodwill Taderera, the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta) acting secretary-general, said salary increases are not matching prices.
‘’I agree with teachers when they complain about the high rate (currency), medical aid, rent, the funeral policies and the prices of basic commodities, transport cost, school fess which I am very certain that they are set to be increased during this coming term while government is not even paying the fees they had promised.
‘’So in our view the teachers are justified when they complain that their salaries are too low because they are subsidising the government, considering the cost of doing business, the cost of getting goods and services.”
“By the same token, I believe it is upon government to make sure that they improve teachers’ salaries so that these teachers can also manage to lead a better life,” Taderera said.
Economic analyst Prosper Chitambara said: “The continuous hardships are being caused by chronic high inflation, which is eroding people’s income and that’s the elephant in the room that we need to address.”
“We need to deal with drivers of that chronic high inflation so as to stabilise the economy, the broad money supply growth and the instability within the foreign exchange markets that needs to be addressed in order to insure greater stability in the economy,” he said.
Economist Vince Musewe said:”We must sort out our politics first and the economy will react accordingly.”
‘’The economic situation in Zimbabwe will continue to deteriorate with rising inflation because of lack of confidence in the currency. This is, as always, a self-fulfilling cycle; as people expect things to get worse, they will actually act to fulfil that expectation. That’s the major issue with our currency.”
“Without addressing the issue of prices, any unstable economy creates negative sentiment. Tactics to hedge profits and incomes against inflation become common phenomena. There is no fundamental logic why US dollar rates continue to increase, but they are, and the socio-economic impact is creating poverty,” Musewe said.
