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Innocent Ruwende Municipal Reporter

Harare City Council is set to carry out a salary survey and benchmarking against service delivery following stakeholders’ concerns that the city is spending much of its revenue towards employment costs at a time when service delivery has plummeted.Stakeholders feel the city is over paying its workers compared to other sectors and Government.

Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni confirmed the development, saying council salaries should not be a secret, and the city when advertising for posts used to factor in the remuneration on the advert.

“I do not know whether the salaries are high or low but council employees’ salaries should not be secret. Once we confirm that our salaries are correct we have to make sure that we devise ways of paying salary arrears which are around five months,” he said. Asked if councillors felt the salaries were high, Mayor Manyenyeni said he was waiting for the survey, “We are not pre-emptying an outcome.”

According to the recent minutes of the Human Resources and General Purposes Committee, councillors considered a confidential report by Human Capital director Dr Cainos Chingombe recommending granting authority to engage an external consultant through tender to carry out a salary survey and benchmarking against service delivery exercise.

“Following discussions, the committee resolved to recommend that council authorises engage an external consultant through tender to carry out a salary survey and benchmarking against service delivery,” reads the minutes.

At a pre-budget consultation meeting recently, industry and commerce urged council to rationalise salaries which were gobbling more than half of the city’s budget and implored the local authority to prioritise service delivery in its 2017 budget.

Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development permanent secretary Mrs Evelyn Ndlovu said the city should make steps to reduce salaries.

“Your budget should not be premised on salaries. Make steps to reduce salaries. We want tarred roads which we see in your budget but we don’t see where they are constructed. Try to make roads.”

FBC Bank senior public relations manager Ms Otilia Gwese also implored the city to cut salaries.

“We have been reading that the huge chunk of your budget goes to salaries. The situation should change. We want the city to prioritise service delivery,” she s said.

In the $465 million 2016 budget it is projected that $307 million will accrue to council at December 31, 2016 while actual collections are anticipated at $157 million during the same period.

It is envisaged that 51 percent of the anticipated actual collections will fund employment costs while 49 percent will go towards service delivery initiatives.