Zimbabwe govt - civil servants reach 140% salary hike deal

The Zimbabwean government and civil servants have reached an agreement for the immediate increase of salaries.

According to Cecilia Alexander, head of the public employees’ trade union confederation, “the provisional agreement” reached with the government provides for a “salary adjustment based on the cost of living from 1 January 2020.”

The purchasing power of Zimbabwean civil servants has been seriously eroded by endemic hyperinflation, forcing them to take to the streets to vent their anger.

The provisional agreement between the government and the public employees’ union provides for a 140 per cent wage increase, according to state daily, The Herald.

Zimbabwe has been going through a 20-year economic crisis, which has recently been exacerbated by the return of shortages of basic necessities, repeated power cuts and drought in the once breadbasket of southern Africa.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who points an accusing finger at the Western powers, is still struggling to revive the economic machine as he promised.