Categories: Stories

The “obscene” salaries Zimbabwe’s CEOs get

While civil servants are battling to have their salaries raised from a paltry $200 a month, executives in Zimbabwe’s private sector and in some parastatals are taking home salaries that are enough to pay 50 to 60 civil servants every month.

According to figures just released by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions executives in the banking sector are walking away with an average of$11 837 a month.

Those in the hospitality industry and parastatals earn an average of $11 540 while the lowest paid chief executives are in the insurance industry where the average salary is $6 429.

Ironically the hospitality industry and parastatals have the lowest paid ordinary workers earning a paltry $154 a month.

Telecoms have the highest paid ordinary workers with an average of $610 while their executives average $8 283.

The figures show that besides their high salaries executives also have a lot of perks including loans that can be up to a year’s salary allowing them to buy luxury cars, which they drive on company fuel, for cash.

Even the allowance for fees for their children is higher than annual salaries for some of their workers while housing allowances range from $300 to $2 500 a month.

The ZCTU says it has been vigorously campaigning that salaries of chief executives be made public as most are earning “obscene salaries” as compared to the ordinary workers.

The Insider has so far been unable to get the full study of the executive salaries but obtained a summary of the salaries and perks.

(393 VIEWS)

Charles Rukuni

The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.

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