Zimbabwe says lowest paid teacher earns $12 591 a month

Zimbabwe today said that the lowest paid civil servant now earns $11 350.15 while the lowest paid teacher is earns $12 591.15 a month.

One of the eight teachers’ unions said the salary was a joke and insisted that teachers should be paid a minimum of US$520 a month.

At the present auction rate the lowest paid civil servant gets US$139.52 while the lowest paid teacher earns US$15479.

At US$520, a teacher would earn $42 299.82 a month.

Teachers have been on strike since examination classes started on 28 September but President Emmerson Mnangagwa said his government will not be held to ransom by the striking teachers.

Finance Minister Mhtuli Ncube has repeatedly said that the government will not pay civil servants in United States dollars. He has even argued in court that the US dollars Zimbabwe was using prior to his appointment in September 2018 were fake US dollars created by the then administration to cover its debts.

Political activist Tinomudaishe Chinyoka had no sympathy for the teachers.

“One of the problems many people have with your argument is that u like to clothe that ‘low pay’ with a comparison to people (the police, the army) that you imply are ‘lower’ than you in some alluded to but never stated hierarchy,” he tweeted. “There is not much sympathy for the politics of envy.”

He was supported by Jamwanda, believed to be Mnangagwa’s spokesman George Charamba, who said: “Well put!!! And when you look at individual cases, it’s the vegetative lot that make most noise. Chaiwo maticha anorava nekushanda havana time yemahumbwe akadai hoping this govt will collapse netuaction twavo tweMDC-?. Hazviitike!!!”

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has been clamouring for re-dollarisation and says civil servants should be paid in US dollars.

The government insists that it is de-dollarising but this will take some time.