The government has already set aside funds to ensure that its workers will receive their bonuses at the end of the year.
This was revealed by Finance Minister, Mthuli Ncube on Friday. Speaking in an interview with CNBC Africa, Ncube said:
We have budgeted for it (civil servants salaries). It is not true that the civil servants are not happy; actually, the reverse is true.
We have done three things already: we have paid $63 million at the beginning of the year for the first three months of the year in a cushioning allowance in addition to salaries.
We did a salary adjustment worth about $400 million on April 1 to the rest of the year. And just last week (a fortnight ago), we did another cushioning allowance worth $143 million — a one-off – and we are negotiating to increase salaries further.
We have budgeted for this . . . and come year-end we will pay them their usual annual bonus in the form of a 13th cheque.
Speaking about the electricity crisis, Ncube that the US$10 million recently paid to South Africa’s power utility, Eskom was taken from the budget surplus accrued over the past six months.
He said that the surplus will be used to structure a final arrangement to make sure that Eskom can continue to supply Zimbabwe with electricity.