The government of Zimbabwe has announced its decision to pay civil servants who are not in the health sector a COVID-19 allowance, the Chronicle reports.
The matter came to light in a post-cabinet briefing when Infomation, Publicity and Broadcasting service minister Monica Mutsvangwa said:
The taskforce received an update on the payment modalities for all non-health frontline staff allowances which are being finalised. The allowances will be paid according to the different risk categories which are low, medium and high. The non-health frontline workers will receive their allowances backdated since they had not yet started receiving these. Embassy staff is to be also considered as frontline workers as they are involved in repatriations.
Meanwhile, teachers had refused to go back to work as they said they also wanted a COVID-19 allowance since they were also risking their lives by going back to work. However, the government did not specify which non-health frontline workers it was referring to and schools remain closed until further notice.
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