Zimbabwe to cut civil service wage bill by $200 next year

Zimbabwe is to cut its civil service wage bill by $200 million next year and by another $130 million in 2020, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said in his Transitional Stabilisation Programme report.

The civil service wage bill currently consumes 90 percent of government expenditure leaving only 10 percent to develop the infrastructure that the country badly needs to attract investors and to develop the country into a middle income economy by 2030.

This year’s wage bill was expected be about $4.5 billion against a budgeted $3.3 billion.

Some of the measures the government will adopt include:

• Moving away from an unfunded ‘Pay-As-You-Go’ pension arrangement by adopting a funded Defined Benefit Pension Scheme or Defined Contribution Scheme arrangement in line with best practice in other jurisdictions
• Further review of Treasury Subventions
• Right-Sizing Public Employment
• Rationalisation of posts in the Public Service
• Strengthening Wage Bill Management
• Further reductions in Budget Travel expenditures
• Further review of expenditures on fuel benefit levels from January 2019
• Curtail acquisition and provision of vehicles by the State, including replacement of condition of service vehicles
• Enforce measures on the use of Government Operational Vehicles by Public Officers
• Rationalisation of the Foreign Service Missions
• Review of Parliamentary sitting allowances, and
• Limit expenditures on By-Elections

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