Civil servants will continue getting their salaries in local currency even though they received their bonuses in US dollars.
Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube on Friday revealed that while bonuses were paid in foreign currency, Government will continue to pay salaries in local currency.
Civil servants’ representatives have been pushing for salaries to be paid in foreign currency but Ncube said payment of bonuses in USD is a “once-off gesture” from President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Said Ncube:
No (We are not going to pay salaries in US dollars.) This is a once-off gesture from His Excellency, just to deal with inflationary pressures that we saw emerging in this last quarter.
We will continue to pay our normal salaries in Zimbabwe dollars.
Ncube said Treasury has released about US$120 million for civil servants’ bonuses as well as civil service pensioners and war veterans and this has been done to cushion them against rising inflation. He said:
In terms of the civil servants bonuses for this year, we basically released about US$120 million.
We hope this will go a long way in dealing with the inflationary pressures they are facing.
This is the decision of the President to deal with those inflationary pressures. Inflation has been ticking up so we just want to make sure that they are protected from this inflation.
So, we thought that it would be a good idea to certainly pay them in US dollars. This also covers pensioners, as well as war veterans.