FOR decades, Zimbabwe’s civil servants have carried the burden of holding together a nation that has constantly tested their endurance.
They have taught in underfunded schools, healed the sick in collapsing hospitals, kept order without resources, and ferried the machinery of State from one day to the next — all while their lives sink deeper into poverty.
And yet we continue to speak of “leaving no one behind.” What absurdity. For who has been left further behind than the man or woman who dared to choose service to their country instead of self-enrichment?
The outrage voiced last week by the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (Artuz) is not an isolated grievance; it is the accumulated cry of a profession betrayed.
When a deputy minister claimed in Parliament that civil servants now earn above the poverty datum line and that their salaries have become competitive, he might as well have announced it to a different universe.
In Zimbabwe, where reality lives, most teachers earn between US$250 and US$300 per month — a figure that barely buy groceries for two weeks in today’s economy. “The struggle for a living wage is the struggle for dignity,” Artuz reminded us, rejecting claims of competitiveness as “a grave insult”.
Keep Reading
- State weaponising law against civil society, CCC
- We’re under siege, says Chamisa
- Mnangagwa under fire over crackdown
- The Mugabe years are back
A teacher today survives on less than what many urban families spend on transport alone. The same teacher is expected to inspire students each morning, to shape dreamers, thinkers and innovators for a better future.
But how does one nurture hope when one’s own life is starved of it? How does one speak of vision when one’s eyes are fixed on the next bus fare home? We have weaponised patriotism and used it as a mask for negligence. We tell our civil servants to “tighten their belts” while we loosen ours to indulge in extravagance. We tell them to serve their country faithfully while we fail to serve them justice.
It is no wonder, then, that inspiration has fled from our classrooms and hospitals. Once upon a time, a child would proudly declare, “I want to be a teacher when I grow up,” or “I want to be a nurse, a policeman, a civil servant.” Today, that dream has been replaced with cynicism. Ask a child now and they will tell you, “I want to be a hustler, a businessman, a social media influencer.” The meaning of success has been distorted. Overnight millionaires, buoyed by corruption and ostentation, have replaced teachers and doctors as society role models. When the influencers flaunt imported cars and designer shoes, while a science teacher sells sadza in town to survive, what lesson are we teaching our children?
The viral video of a "science teacher" cooking in town was not an oddity — it was a mirror held up to a nation. That teacher could be any one of thousands who have turned to vending, tutoring, or even leaving for menial work abroad just to eke out a living. We call them “heroes of education,” but we treat them as beggars. We call them “the backbone of society,” but we force them to work on broken spines. Meanwhile, government officials speak of “competitiveness” and “economic resilience.” Competitiveness compared to what — despair itself?
Service delivery has continued to decline and we feign surprise. How can we expect motivated nurses when they cannot afford food? How do we demand accountability from a clerk who hasn’t been paid adequately for years? Morale does not grow in poverty; patriotism does not flourish in hunger. You cannot harvest discipline from the barren soil of despair. When our O'Level pass rate plummets, when hospital waiting lists lengthen, when efficiency evaporates at every level of the civil service, we must admit that this is not mere incompetence — it is the inevitable consequence of deliberate abandonment.
Zimbabwe is not poor, at least not in potential. We are richly endowed with minerals, fertile land and an educated populace. But we are impoverished by the cancer of corruption that eats into every tender, every budget, every project. The tragedy is not that we have no resources; it is that too few benefit from them justly. If Botswana, Zambia and Namibia can pay living wages to their civil servants, what is our excuse? We boast of being “Africa’s intellectual jewel,” yet our jewel-polishers — the teachers — live like castaways. It is a bitter paradox: those who nurture our future minds cannot afford to feed their own children.
The government’s insistence on using the National Joint Negotiating Council (NJNC) as a mere consultative body, rather than a genuine forum for collective bargaining, is another symptom of State arrogance. Consultation is not negotiation. Civil servants deserve to have binding power over decisions that shape their livelihoods. The current system, where the State dictates terms and then parades the illusion of dialogue, mocks constitutional rights and deepens worker resentment.
To repair this, Zimbabwe needs both moral and structural reconstruction. The first step is truth — acknowledging without propaganda that our civil service is underpaid and disillusioned. Then comes commitment: aligning wages to the real cost of living, which is currently well above US$1 400 monthly for an average family. Salaries must be regularly reviewed and indexed to inflation.
The wage structure must reward qualifications and loyalty, restoring teaching, nursing and administration as respected callings. Fiscal reform must strip the excesses of a bloated political class, redirecting those funds to the pillars of public service.
We also need to reframe the national psyche. The glorification of ill-gotten wealth must end. Children must again see the virtue in honest work, in service, in integrity. That cultural renewal will not happen through slogans, but through visible justice — when corruption is punished, when merit is rewarded and when a teacher does not have to sell tomatoes to survive.
Zimbabwe cannot stand on commerce alone, nor can it lean on foreign investors or mining exports while neglecting its civil servants. A country’s heartbeat lies in its public service. When its teachers, nurses and officers lose faith, the nation’s pulse falters. Patriotism without justice is exploitation; service without reward is slavery.
The time for empty promises has expired. We must decide, collectively, whether we value our servants as nation-builders or as expendables. For every teacher who leaves for England or Namibia, for every nurse who crosses borders to seek dignity, we lose not just labour but identity — the soul of the nation itself.
Broken promises can only be mended by action. Pay them what they deserve. Restore their dignity. Reignite their pride. Only then can Zimbabwe say with truth, not hypocrisy, that it leaves no one behind. Because as long as our civil servants remain beggars in the land they serve, we remain a nation crippled by its own neglect — a people rich in resources but poor in conscience.