Civil servants strike, demand salary hikes

Just one hundred civil servants in Harare went on a protest march, to denounce the government’s failure to meet their salary demands.

Our correspondent in the capital, Simon Muchemwa, told us it took the civil servants almost two hours to gather at the Harare gardens in central Harare where they began their march. The decision to go on a one day strike was taken last week following Finance Minister Tendai Biti’s mid-term budget review.

Biti downgraded the national budget from $4 billion to $3.4 billion due to lack of diamond revenues from the Marange fields, dashing any hopes of a wage increase for the civil servants.

The poor attendance at the protest showed up the fundamental differences between the affiliates of the Apex Council.

The Apex Council is an umbrella union for civil servants, bringing together the Public Service Association, Zimbabwe Teachers Association, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, Teachers Union of Zimbabwe and the College Lecturers Association of Zimbabwe.

Apex chairperson Tendai Chikowore told us last week that civil servants wanted their salaries raised across the board, with the lowest paid workers demanding a raise from $286 to $560 per month.

The demonstrators on Tuesday marched from the Harare gardens to the new government complex that houses the Ministry of Finance and to the Parliament buildings. The public sector employees held up placards that read: ‘We want our money, we want our diamonds” and “MPs $15,000 civil servants $0.”

Muchemwa said at both the Ministry of Finance and Parliament, the civil servants left petitions calling on the government to seriously look into the dire situation of those in the public sector.

He said it was clear the demonstration was marred by differences of opinion among the Apex affiliates. Some wanted to take a militant stance against Biti, while others opposed the idea, saying they were protesting against government, not an individual.

‘They argued on the wording of the placards, some of which called Biti names. This was decided against as the majority felt the Finance minister wasn’t solely to blame for their crisis but the whole government,’ Muchemwa said.

On Monday Biti claimed the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) and Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party were backing Tuesday’s demonstration by civil servants.

He told the VOA he saw a hidden hand in the demonstration after police took swift action in giving the civil servants the green light to protest and that during the Tuesday march, police kept watch from a distance.