Mayor, Local Authority Meet Over High Executives' Salaries
Jonga Kandemiiri
City of Harare
WASHINGTON DC —
Recent revelations that Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) chief executive Happison Muchechetere was earning over $40,000 monthly despite the decay at the state broadcaster have spurred local authorities to look into salaries being paid to their top executives as residents push for improved service delivery.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo sent Muchechetere on forced leave as he moved in to reverse the decay at ZBC by dissolving the state broadcaster’s board.
Employees went for more than seven months without pay while top executives were apparently milking the broadcaster.
Also said to be earning high salaries are top officials at most parastatals in the country that prompted the government recently to demanded to be furnished with salary schedules of top executives in parastatals with a view to regulate them.
This prompted Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni to demand a full disclosure of top council executives’ salaries.
Manyenyeni said he requested the full disclosure following wider calls for public bodies to look into the issue of how their top managers are paid.
There have been calls too from residents for the council to review its top executives’ remuneration.
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Interview With Bernard Manyenyeni
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has also been vigorously campaigning that salaries of the executives be made public as most were earning obscene salaries as compared to what the ordinary workers were taking home.
The workers’ umbrella body recently released a survey of salaries earned by top executives in various sectors that included the manufacturing, banking, insurance and non-governmental organisations, that range between $6,000 and $11,800 per month minus benefits.