A CANCER is eating away at the heart of our government and its symptoms are becoming all too familiar: misplaced priorities, arrogance and indifference to the plight of ordinary workers.
The latest scandal comes from the Department of Civil Registry.
Workers who toiled during the 2023 national mobile registration blitz were promised allowances of US$120 per day, a total of US$3 600 for three months of service.
To date, they have not been paid.
Instead of honouring this commitment, their bosses are scheming to divert the very funds earmarked for allowance arrears.
In Zimbabwe, some things never change.
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Promises are made to workers, allowances pledged, commitments declared in broad daylight.
Then, when the dust settles, a new song begins: “Sorry, the money is needed for chefs’ cars.”
Yes, chefs’ cars.
Not hospitals, not schools, not the allowances owed to men and women who sweated through a mobile registration blitz in 2023. No!
The nation’s real emergency, according to Registrar-General Henry Machiri, is that directors need new wheels.
Machiri reportedly wrote to Treasury in the past weeks requesting authority to reallocate US$1,1 million from the unpaid allowances to “pressing commitments” — including international subscriptions, motor vehicle plates and, most annoying of all, cars for directors.
The letter is chilling in its insensitivity.
What message does this convey?
That workers are expendable, but directors’ comfort is sacred.
That broken promises are a minor inconvenience, but the horror of a chef without a new car is a national crisis.
That arrears to staff can be ignored, but arrears to motor vehicle dealers are an urgent threat to State security.
At a time when civil servants are struggling to feed their families, transport their children to school or pay rent, officials are more concerned about chefs’ cars.
This is nothing short of betrayal.
The same government that pleaded with its staff to serve the nation during a critical exercise now seeks to deny them their dues.
The same officials who cannot find money for allowances can somehow find justification for chefs’ cars.
Government’s credibility is already threadbare.
Repeatedly, promises to workers are broken while perks for the elite are protected.
And repeatedly, citizens are told to tighten belts while leaders loosen theirs.
Those at the bottom sacrifice while those at the top feast.
What is happening at the Registrar-General’s Office is not just financial mismanagement, it is moral bankruptcy.
To deny workers their rightful dues while begging for approval to buy cars for directors is to spit in the face of every honest civil servant.
It is a slap in the face of every citizen who relies on government services.
The cancer of misplaced priorities must be cut out.
Treasury must reject this brazen attempt to divert workers’ money.
Parliament must summon the registrar-general to account.
And above all, government must stop treating its workforce as expendables while pampering its bureaucrats.
In fact, if satire were a ministry, it would be out of business, because government outperforms parody every week.
Zimbabweans have grown used to this theatre of misplaced priorities.
Ambulances without fuel, but convoys bristling with SUVs.
Schools without chalk, but ministries with fresh fleets.
Civil servants queuing for unpaid allowances, while bosses race off in shiny new cars bought with the money owed workers.
Civil servants deserve dignity. They deserve their pay.
They deserve leaders who care more about service than about the shine of a new motor vehicle.
If this rot continues unchecked, the cost will not just be unpaid allowances.
It will be the total collapse of public trust in a government that has long forgotten who it is meant to serve.
Zimbabwe does not lack resources. It lacks shame.