Zimbabwe Fails to Pay State Workers’ ZiG Wages, Union Says
Zimbabwe failed to pay state workers the ZiG component of their salaries and bonuses in November, less than two weeks after its Treasury requested spending cuts on certain budget items.
“We have not received salaries and bonuses for November,” Charles Chinosengwa, organizing secretary for Zimbabwe Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions, said in a phone interview.
The absence of the ZiG payment “has left many teachers unable to meet their financial obligations, particularly at a time when economic pressures are heightened, and end-of-year expenses are critical,” Akuneni Maphosa, president of Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association, which has 39,000 members, said in a statement late Tuesday.
Calls to Public Service Minister July Moyo and Deputy Finance Minister Kuda Mnangagwa weren’t immediately answered.
The southern African nation started paying employees’ salaries in local currency and the rest in dollars in 2016 to incentivize them and deal with sharp slumps in the local unit.
In April, it replaced the Zimbabwean Dollar with the ZiG, its sixth attempt in 15 years to stand up a stable local currency to replace the dollar, which is used in most transactions.
The ZiG was devalued by 43% on Sept. 27 after significantly depreciating on the parallel market and shedding value against the dollar for more than a month on the official market.
The devaluation prompted the country’s Treasury on Nov. 13 to ask government departments to prioritize their spending commitments for the rest of the year as it expected non-wage budget support to be severely constrained.
In the circular issued on the matter, George Guvamatanga, secretary for finance and economic development, said that the depreciation of the ZiG currency created a “substantial mismatch” between revenue, which in some cases is a one-month lag, and local-currency expenditure, which needs to be settled immediately.
Maphosa said if the nonpayment is not resolved within five days the union would “escalate the matter through appropriate channels” including seeking legal recourse or collective action.
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube will present the country’s 2025 budget on Nov. 28.
