The Herald
Editorial
4 September 2009
Harare — Teachers’ unions that have urged their members to report for work despite complaints over salaries should be commended for their understanding and valuing the needs of students.
However, as we have previously stated, there is need to holistically address the issue of salaries of not only teachers, nurses and doctors –the three groups which are constantly on strike but also of the entire civil and uniformed service.
Teachers should bear in mind that the rest of the civil service is also getting the low salaries because Government is broke. Government is not a profit-making organisation but relies on taxes for its revenue.
Most sectors of the economy are still operating below capacity, hence the modest inflow of revenue from taxes into State coffers. In the same vein, the onus is on Finance Minister Tendai Biti to convince teachers and all civil servants that Government is battling to raise money.
Minister Biti should also make an unambiguous pronouncement that as the economy grows and revenue from taxes improves, Government will increase the salaries of civil servants until they reach a livable level.
This is how employers in the private sector have dealt with the problems of salaries. They have simply adopted the strategy that they will increase workers’ salaries and wages in tandem with the rise in income. It might also be prudent for Government to publish its monthly earnings from tax collections to help civil servants understand its position.
Minister Biti admitted in an interview with our sister paper, The Sunday Mail, that Government had stopped looking to the West for the country’s economic revival after realising that the intended partners lacked the goodwill to support Zimbabwe.
He said Government was now looking at harnessing local resources to pull the country out of the present economic hardships.
Perhaps he now realises that his party, the MDC-T, should have never called for sanctions because the embargo has not hurt the politicians they were fighting but the economy and ordinary people who constitute the majority of civil servants. Until the sanctions are lifted and the Zimbabwean economy rebounds, we should not expect miracles. Some of the companies that have done well since the introduction of the multi-currency system have had to devise their own survival strategies.
But they could have performed better than they are doing at the moment if the country was not under the siege of sanctions.
We hail the Progressive Teachers’ Union for being true to its name and being progressive by urging its members to report for lessons while their grievances are being addressed.
The Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe has also shown it appreciates the plight of Government and wants to give dialogue a chance, again a commendable stance. It is in everyone’s best interest to be reasonable and co-operate on such issues of national importance.
Students will soon be going into exams and cannot afford to lose anymore time. On compassionate grounds each teacher who is on strike should reconsider and go back to the classroom for the students’ sake.