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Patrick Chitumba Midlands Bureau Chief
GWERU City Council Town Clerk Ms Elizabeth Gwatipedza has defended the proposed $3 million job evaluation exercise adopted by the municipality, saying it is prudent that they retrench some workers to remain viable. Responding to concerns by Councillor Hamutendi Kombayi, who queried why GCC was going to folk out $3 million towards the second phase of the job evaluation exercise, Ms Gwatipedza said the exercise would result in council cutting its huge wage bill.

“I am worried about spending $3 million on a job evaluation exercise. Can we not find other ways of addressing the financial challenges we are facing?” said Cllr Kombayi. Ms Gwatipedza said it should be noted that council has for the past three months been receiving $1,2 million every month in revenue yet wages and statutory obligations gobbled $1,3 million monthly. She said this leaves council with no resources for service delivery.

“The job evaluation exercise was adopted in 2015 and a company called GIZ (German International Cooperation) was engaged to facilitate the exercise. The first phase of the exercise has been completed and we adopted the first draft. Now we want to implement phase two and we have to pay about $3 million. For the past three months we have been collecting $1,2 million in revenue against $1,3 million that is going towards employment costs and other statutory obligations,” said Ms Gwatipedza. She said council was going to fire some employees if the second phase of the job evaluation is implemented.

“You should also remember that the 2016 annual budget for the city was approved by Government on condition that we cut employment costs and that can be done through job evaluation. Employment costs are chewing 56 percent of our revenue and that is not healthy for our finances because it negatively affects service delivery,” said Ms Gwatipedza. Mayor Cllr Charles Chikozho said the job evaluation was likely going to see 500 employees losing their jobs. GCC has about 1 200 workers.