FINANCE minister Patrick Chinamasa has warned that local authorities and heads of parastatals found in defiance of a $6 000 monthly salary cap he announced last week would be dealt with by a Cabinet committee set up to address the salary distortions.
Victoria Mtomba
Addressing journalists in the capital Harare yesterday, Chinamasa said the $6 000 salary cap for CEOs at public institutions was an interim measure to control the scourge of mega-salaries and pave way for a salary audit.
“No one can resist an interim measure where at the end of the day there would be no losses. In any event, mention those ones who are resisting. We will deal with this problem as a committee,” he said.
Chinamasa said the “obscene” salaries earned by some heads of public institutions like councils and parastatals needed to be urgently addressed as this drained the country’s meagre resources and benefited a few people.
“To get to the bottom, we need a remuneration audit which will address a lot of issues where procedures for approvals of those awards followed, such as whether the organisation has the capacity to pay, so on and so forth. Now only after the audit will appropriate action be taken to adjust downwards or upwards,” he said.
Several local authorities told NewsDay early this week that they would not rush to implement Chinamasa’s directive for fear of attracting lawsuits from the affected employees and losing their skilled personnel.
Recent reports indicated that some parastatal bosses have been earning as much as $500 000 a month amid poor performance by most of the companies.
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At least 70 out of 90 parastatal bosses were getting above $6 000 per month when the majority of civil servants earned salaries below the poverty datum line pegged at $540. Chinamasa said many chief executives were also evading taxes by awarding themselves relatively low salaries and huge untaxed allowances.
Some of the bosses earning the mega salaries and perks have either been retired or suspended pending further investigation.
