My salary reduces me to a beggar!

By Wongai Zhangazha

Chenjerai Hondo looks down at his hands and shakes his head.

The inside of his strong hands are rough from tilling the hard lands of Hurungwe, a rural area in Mashonaland West province of Zimbabwe. He holds a few United States dollars - a new $100 note, $50 and a torn $20 - that is his monthly salary. A total of $170.

He wonders how it will sustain him until the end of the month with three children going to school, a wife, and his mother whom he looks after. Apart from school fees and transport costs, he needs to pay for the rent and buy groceries. 

Loyal teacher

For 15 years Hondo he has worked as a teacher at Tengwe Secondary school, surviving on the well wishes and parents of the school children he teaches. The once-admirable profession in the Zimbabwe can now hardly sustain him, despite the level of education required by the country’s youth.

“I have been very patient but I can’t take it anymore. My family needs to eat. I have an extended family to look after. What does $170 do for me?” Hondo told Mywage Zimbabwe. He expressed disappointment at the Minimum Wage which the government was giving him.

“This job has reduced me to a beggar, as I now depend on handouts.” 

Teachers in Zimbabwe have been surviving more on incentives than their basic salary.

Hondo said: “Parents can give me a packet of sugar, a green soap bar, and two litres of cooking oil. But I need to secure the future of my children. What of health facilities? Will I carry that cooking oil to the hospital if I fall sick?”

Education Minister David Coltart is on record saying payment of “reasonable” incentives by parents was the only way government and parents could avoid a staff exodus.

Others also not happy

Hondo is not the only disgruntled by his Minimum Wage. Memory Chirandu, a nurse at one of the country’s biggest government hospitals, is also unhappy.

“Though donors have chipped in, the money is still not enough. My landlord wants US$50 monthly for the small room I rent and I pay school fees for my siblings. But government keeps buying cars for their ministers. What about us?” she asked.

For more than a decade civil servants in Zimbabwe have occupied one of the lowest paid professions in the country, and government has not provided any better salary. They are told to be patient.

The poverty datum line stands at $500 but the minimum salary is $170.

Raise the Minimum Wage!

Hondo and Chirandu, like the rest of country's 230,000 civil servant employees, have demanded that the government puts the Minimum Wage at $630 and have refused government’s proposal of a 10% pay increase starting in April. This would mean the Minimum Wage would only be raised to $236, which is still way below the poverty datum line.

But now they have grown impatient. Strikes have already started to take place. Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) acting Secretary General Japhet Moyo told a local newspaper that the civil servants’ strike was likely to spread to the private sector to force employers to pay salaries above US$450, which is in line with the poverty datum line.

Moyo said: “Employers have to pay. We cannot continue having employers pay workers 28% of the poverty datum line and expect them to survive. I foresee a situation where the civil servants’ strike will spread to the private sector.”

Tendai Chikowore, chairperson of the Public Service Association said that employees will not to return to work until the government agrees to pay a minimum salary of US$630.

However, apart from civil servants, domestic workers are also among the most poorly paid workers in the country, with no strong representatives to stand up for their labour rights. The lowest paid are housemaids and gardeners in the country. Their salary ranges between $20 and $100 per month.

•  Check how much your salary can buy. See the Mywage Zimbabwe grocery list.