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"My salary reduces me to a beggar!" - February 2010

The Minimum Wage in Zimbabwe is unsustainable, with 85% living below the poverty datum line. Chenjerai Hondo has been a teacher for 15 years, and currently earns $170 a month, with which he must support his family, pay his children's school fees, buy food and pay rent. 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?”

 

He is not alone. 

 

For more than a decade civil servants in Zimbabwe, including teachers and nurses, 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.

 

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