RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe employees, who were retrenched in January 2011, have dismissed as unacceptable Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono’s explanation for the central bank’s failure to pay their outstanding retrenchment packages.
Staff Reporter
The employees said yesterday in a statement that Gono misled the country recently when he said the RBZ did not have the capacity to pay and yet they had made money after disposing of their assets.
Gono said to journalists last week: “The plight of former workers is a sad one, but the bank is powerless as it does not have resources to pay.
“Those who remained (working at RBZ) have not been paid to the period up to the time that former workers left.”
But the retrenched workers said they felt they could have been paid if Gono and his management had prioritised their plight.
“To date, it is an open secret that the bank has disposed of its stake in Tractive Power Holdings and realised a total of $9,7 million,” the workers claimed. “Out of this amount they paid only a total of $2,9 million (30% of the proceeds) and retained 70% for their own use. This means that the bank allocated 70% to itself yet they constitute 25% of the establishment and 30% of the resources to the retrenches, who constitute 75% of the staff establishment.
“Surely if the central bank was serious about paying its former workers, they could at least have paid off some of our colleagues and paid at least 50% to those with relatively large amounts.
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“The RBZ is now saying it has no money to pay us because it is now only two months to go before the final date of their second unilateral payment schedule. One wonders want kind of leadership we have at the central bank. Such level of dishonesty is really shocking to say the least,” they said.
The affected workers are said to be 1 546.
Media reports have claimed that one of the former employees committed suicide out of frustration and stress.
