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Mashonaland West Bureau
Chinhoyi Municipality owes employees more than $1,2 million in salary arrears dating back to 2016, amid reports of a serious standoff between management and workers.

A workers’ representative who asked not to be named for professional reasons, said some of the workers had not received their salaries since August last year.

“We have seven months which we were not paid in 2016 and we have not received our salaries since August last year yet we are reporting for work every day,” he said.

The workers’ representative said their families were the most affected by the situation.

“Our children are the most disadvantaged because we are failing to meet their needs as parents which also affects them in their school work,” he said.

Employees at Chinhoyi Municipality, he said, were failing to pay fees, buy books and even food for their school-going children.

“Those in management have been earning a living through allowances from various seminars which they create, twice or thrice per week and they give each other large sums of about $2 000 per person,” he said.

Chinhoyi Town Clerk Mr Maxwell Kaitano confirmed that council owed employees unpaid salaries.

“We acknowledge the money owed to the workers and we are working towards clearing it,” he said. “We are very sensitive to their plight despite the challenges.

“All we need to do is strategise to clear our arrears, we still have room to source for resources and efforts are being made to clear arrears in workers’ salaries.”

Mr Kaitano, however, denied allegations that the workers had not been paid since August last year.

“We have been paying every month and,as we speak, we are paying for September,” he said. “We agreed with employees to cover for the previous months and that is what we are doing now.”

Mr Kaitano dismissed allegations that the salary arrears dated back to 2016 indicating that council had cleared the arrears with only a few employees owed from that far.

“The workers received loans and those loans had arrears at the banks so we took over the loans from them and these were running into millions of dollars,” he said.

Mr Kaitano said some of the workers actually owed council money.

“We did them a favour, so only a few individuals who had loans which were not huge can claim to be owed money from 2016,” he said.

On management creating workshops to receive allowances, Mr Kaitano said most were sponsored by the organisers.

“However, despite all the false allegations we have strategies we want to employ to clear these arrears and if things become worse we will also consider giving the employees stands for the amounts owed,” he said.

Chinhoyi Residents’ Association secretary general Mr Tapiwanashe Chikondowa urged council to work on solutions for payment of the arrears.