Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa will this afternoon present his 2015 National Budget and as witnessed in the past five years, civil servants’ salaries have been gobbling 75% of the budget.
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This alone is against the international benchmark of 30%. Salaries and wages of government workers have been the country’s major expense since 2009 and will be in the foreseeable future.
Precisely, Chinamasa must perform a Houdini act by dealing with ghost workers so that Zimbabwe reduces its wage bill. For instance, the country has 24 ministries which have some redundant staff members withdrawing cash from the fiscus.
In the 2014 National Budget, some government departments such as the Gender ministry received 1% from Treasury, meaning the ministry will not be able to do most of the work that it wanted to.
Zimbabwe has 78 parastatals which are hemorrhaeging the fiscus as the perennial lossmakers keep on asking for government bailouts for their operations.
Despite the huge salary and wage bill, the Zimbabwe National Army, Zimbabwe Republic Police and other security departments are still recruiting, further worsening the already dire situation.
Chinamasa recently admitted that the huge government wage bill is “embarrassing and unsustainable”. Therefore, the time to act is now because the minister is hesitant to deal with the elephant in the room. Zimbabwe’s economic situation will worsen.
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One wonders whether Chinamasa wants to wait until government is unable to service its salary bill. Does the minister want to wait until it has become a disaster?
The private sector has extensively retrenched as a way to make their operations sustainable. Admittedly, it is not an easy decision, but still they had to do it to remain operational.
It is estimated that since January, over 5 000 people have lost their jobs countrywide as companies are trying to rationalise operations.
Chinamasa must save some of the funds that government is funnelling to the ballooning wage bill and invest in infrastructure projects for the good of the economy.
Indeed, if the country continues on this pathway, there is no doubt that it will take Zimbabwe long to tame the beast.
It is a misnomer that for the past five years, the National Budget was financing recurrent expenditures. Isn’t it time for Chinamasa to pull up his socks, do away with populism and focus on the basics to save the country from the worst?
Regrettably, Chinamasa’s ruling Zanu PF party is at its weakest due to the internecine fights threatening to tear the 50-year-old liberation movement apart while the economy continues to slip into the abyss.
It appears it is only Chinamasa and a few other Cabinet ministers in the economic cluster — Mike Bimha (Industry and Commerce) and Walter Chidhakwa (Mines and Mining Development) — who are grappling with the economy, while the rest of their government colleagues are preoccupied with leadership positions within Zanu PF.
Almost 18 months since the formation of the current government, nothing seems to be moving as everyone that matters is trying to save their skin in the race to succeed 90-year-old President Robert Mugabe. Zanu PF must realise that there is life after Mugabe, hence they must work on delivering on the election promises and deal with the economy first and foremost.
Chinamasa must confront the elephant in the living room.
