BULAWAYO The government freeze on recruitment of civil servants in various ministries will persist this year.The continued freeze also comes against a background of a critical shortage of nurses in the countrys big hospitals and clinics in remote areas.
Ministry of Public Service Deputy Minister, Andrew Langa, said the government was working on a limited budget, hence the need to continue with the freeze.
The governments position is clear. We are working on a very limited budget that does not allow us to recruit as we may want in any sector. We have been struggling to pay civil servants, he said.
He said his ministry was aware of the effects of the freeze in various critical sectors.
We are aware of the effects of the recruitment freeze. Some clinics and hospitals have a shortage of nurses while schools have always been facing the same predicament and we are working to rectify that. Government will continue to employ in all the critical areas such as that of health. We are engaging the services of temporary teachers at the beginning of the schools first term as we seek to increase staff compliment in the countrys schools, he added.
Langa reiterated that budgetary constraints were the main reason why the government had effected the freeze on recruitment as the available resources were not enough to sustain the salary bill.
Education Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Senator David Coltart said although the freezes effects were once strongly felt in the education sector they were relieved after they were allowed to engage teachers although there were areas that still needed staff compliment.
The freezes effects were once felt in the education sector, but last year the ministry managed to engage a total of 15 000 teachers countrywide. So as we speak the freeze now has limited effects, although there are areas that still need attention especially in rural areas, he said.
He however could not be drawn into giving the number of qualified teachers that are required in schools amid confirmed reports that the country was labouring under heavy shortage of Mathematics and Science teachers.
The Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Henry Madzorera, confirmed that there were some clinics and hospitals with a shortage of nurses.
He however said the shortage was not only linked to the freeze but to lack of motivation, with nurses reluctant to go and work in remote areas with some of them preferring to leave the country.
The issue is not that there are no nurses in the country but they are reluctant to be deployed to certain areas and the headache remains with us on how we can get them to go and work there with the limited resources that we have. We have new clinics and hospitals that have been constructed and need staff, so the need for us to apply was just inevitable. We have not yet got the response from the relevant ministries though, said Madzorera.
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