At the moment salaries in most local authorities in the country, gobble most of the money collected from rate payers at the expense of service delivery.
Already the ministry has set up a committee led by Deputy Minister of Local Government, Sesel Zvidzai to look into the salary bills of the local authorities with the aim to ascertain whether the authorities were compliant with the government directive that only 30 percent of revenue was for salaries while 70 percent goes to service delivery.
“In our investigations, we have discovered that 80 percent of revenue that is collected by local councils goes to salaries. This a major challenge for and we are going to look into the Labour Act before we cut the salaries. But I can confirm now that the salaries will be cut.
“A major study that we carried out in the past states that 30% is the maximum that can go to salaries and 70 percent should fund service delivery. Therefore every council must meet these requirements, however from what local authorities have submitted this is not the case,” said Zvidzai.
Zvidzai however refused to be drawn into revealing how much local authorities were giving to top council employees such as the town clerk and engineers saying it was still premature for him to do so.
Sources privy to the on going investigation however told this paper that some town clerks of the country major cities were earning as much as US$20.000 per month.
Notwithstanding the competitive salaries that local councils were rewarding to workers, service delivery in most of Zimbabwe’s towns had been far from satisfactory with roads in bad shape and refuse piling in the streets uncollected.
“We are going to effect the 70 percent (for salaries) rule so that money does not go into paying salaries for workers but to service delivery which has been compromised by the huge salary bill that is gobbling revenue collected.
Post published in: News