LEGISLATORS are putting pressure on government to improve their conditions of service, with some of them demanding that their salaries be commensurate with those of other legislators in the region.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
The issues came out during the pre-budget seminar recently held in the resort town of Victoria Falls, where MPs demanded the carrying-out of a job evaluation to improve the conditions of service of staff of Parliament and legislators.
Blog posts from the Parliament website that were posted during the pre-budget seminar indicated that MPs also want salaries of Parliament staff to be reviewed upwards.
“It is important to ensure that there be an urgent review of salaries of staff (Parliament) based on the salaries of other regions,” Prosper Mutseyami, who is the chairperson of the welfare committee for MPs, is quoted saying.
MDC-T legislator Fanny Chirisa added: “Salaries of Parliament need to match the conditions of service of MPs that are prevailing in the region.”
Another MP, Gift Chimanikire (Southerton), suggested that a job evaluation should be done first in that respect.
According to Norton MP Temba Mliswa, MPs earn a basic salary of $1 207, and with allowances added onto the basic salary, it then goes up to $2 000. Mabvuku-Tafara MP James Maridadi said on average, MPs in the region get salaries of $6 000.
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In addition to improvement of their welfare, MPs have demanded disbursement of $50 000 Constituency Development Fund (CDF) allocations.
The Parliament blog post said that Speaker of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda, in his speech in Victoria Falls, demanded that CDF allocations should be provided for all the 350 MPs in the Zimbabwean Parliament.
Before Parliament adjourned early in November, the Executive bowed down to MPs’ demands and Treasury quickly released $4 million to go towards settling half of their outstanding sitting allowances last week.
The balance of their payments is supposed to be settled by December 15, 2017.
