AFRICA is not poor. It only has a preponderance of poor leaders. Since the first school term of 2010 started nearly a month ago, the government has not been able to resolve the problem of civil servants’ salaries.
The repeated chorus by government to demands by its workers has been that the government has no money. It is not difficult to understand the seething anger among civil servants: They see a government ever ready to dispatch endless delegations and entourages to every available international conference and they wonder how the same government can afford so many trips, whose outcomes remain questionable yet plead impecuniousity.

More than two weeks ago government workers gave the government an ultimatum to raise salaries. The response has been paltry piecemeal offers.

Civil servants have been patient enough and have given enough warnings of industrial action. Now the government has to decide on several issues, among them the ostentatious lifestyle of its ministers and officials and what it is doing with the revenue inflows from the Chiadzwa diamond fields and the toll gates. Evidence of lack of maintenance of major roads abounds, yet the government has been collecting revenue from tollgates for several months.

Government workers declared a strike on Friday after their demands of a US$630 minimum monthly wage fell on deaf ears. Civil servants are unconvinced that the sacrifices they are being exhorted to make are shared by those calling for such measures. There appears to be one law for the haves and another for the have-nots. The workers see no one sympathising with or willing to acknowledge their plight.

Out of their derisory monthly US$160 allowance that the government calls a salary, government workers are expected to pay for rentals, electricity, water, food, and clothing as well as meet school fees for their children and transportation. The latest offer would have seen the least paid workers taking home just less than 50% of what the workers are demanding for their lowest-paid members. The government has taxed the patience of its workers, whose members see the revenue inflows into Treasury.

The consequences of the strike will be severe. For the first time since 1998 when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions led significant industrial action in this country Friday’s declaration will paralyse all government services. The impact of the action by government workers will deal a severe blow to attempts by the Government of National Unity at economic recovery.

The signs of disgruntlement have been evident since last year when the government decided on awarding allowances instead of salaries. But a widening disparity between service charges and what the workers are taking home appears to have been the last straw.

Major unions representing teachers, health workers, state college and university lecturers as well as office workers, held a rally attended by thousands of workers at the Harare Gardens. There were angry scenes which saw the leadership of the workers being shouted down by their members, who said they would only return to work after the government has addressed their demands.

The irony is that a government that was created out of negotiations and compromise has not shown its ability to learn from past lessons. For the first time in decades the failure to act on workers’ concerns has ironically helped to unite feuding unions.

Asking civil servants to exercise more patience when government ministers are engaged in foreign trips which gobble up vast amounts but whose benefits are questionable is to mock the intelligence of government workers. The government has sown seeds of distrust. It might rue its handling of the workers’ grievances.

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