Cuthbert Dube and the battle against greed

Nobody knows if this was enforced.

It is most likely that it was not, as many of the CEOs, it was pointed out at the time, already had contracts and had lawyers at the ready to challenge any breach.

The gulf between CEOs and their workers remains, and it continues to widen with no regulation stepping in.

A recent ZCTU report, “Working Without Pay, Wage Theft in Zimbabwe”, showed private sector CEO salaries were as much as 20 577 times higher than that of the lowest paid worker. 

CEOs binge on big salaries, yet, according to the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe, 120 000 workers across the country worked without pay between 2015 and 2016.

At the National Railways of Zimbabwe, a monument to Zimbabwe’s parastatal rot, senior management shared $1 million in salaries last year, while staff went a year with no pay.

There are many examples of heads of loss making firms coining it; former NetOne CEO Reward Kangai was earning $43 693 per month while his company bled.

Even Happison Muchechetete was taking home close to $40 000 for heading a broadcaster nobody takes seriously.

CEOs, even those of poor performing companies, will binge on big salaries and perks, even at the expense of staff, as long as they know they can get away with it.

As shown at PSMAS, the boards that are supposed to provide supervision are themselves compromised.

They will sign off on rich perks as long as they also get their own.

This is happening in private and public sectors alike.

 Board members are making a living from sitting allowances, so they sign off on excess spending and look the other way.

The regulators themselves are unsure.

On the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, publicly listed firms are still allowed to keep CEO salaries a secret, despite such disclosure now being standard elsewhere.

Parastatal bosses are still bagging the big salaries, despite Chinamasa’s threats.

There will be occasional bursts of outrage when Dube-style perks are made public.

But Dube’s perks were never illegal; they were just immoral.

But we will need more than outrage to stop greed.

Because we cannot appeal to executives’ morality.

Many of them have none whatsoever.- The  Source

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