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Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare City Council has reverted to the late retirement age of 65, saying the decision to retire its workers at 60 had negatively affected its operations and necessitated constant re-engagement of retirees to ameliorate skills shortage.

The decision was made at a full council meeting on Monday after councillors decided to alter a resolution it made in March 2014 to retire its workers at the age of 60 years. At the time council introduced a 55-year early retirement and 60 years mandatory retirement policy.

“The above would result in less financial pressure being exerted on council in respect of Local Authorities Pension Fund disbursements since no council employees would be retiring in the next five years. Council would then be able to concentrate on paying pension dues to employees who have already retired while also reducing litigations to non-payment of pensions,” read minutes of the Human Resources and General Purposes Committee.

“Following discussion, the committee resolved to recommend that council approves the alteration of its resolution recorded under Item 20 dated 6 March 2014 from the normal retirement age of 60 years to late retirement age of 65 for council employees with immediate effect from the adoption of this recommendation by council.”

The move by council follows court challenges by the Harare Municipal Workers Union, which accused council of inhuman treatment by forcing employees to retire at 60 years when their contracts of employment and collective bargaining agreement set final retirement age at 65.

HMWU executive chairperson Mr Cosmas Bungu said the city arrived at the decision without consulting other partners.

Mr Bungu’s comments came as former council employees recently demonstrated over non-payment of pensions. Although council deducted money from their accounts, it was not remitted to the Local Authorities Pension Fund.

“The forced retirement idea came from the employer. The pensionable ages in terms of the Statutory Instrument 135-2012 (10) clause(1) states that “subject to the Local Authority Pension Regulation the following shall be considered pensionable age (a) 50 of years of age early retirement (b) 60 years of age normal retirement (c) 65 years retirement.”

Mr Bungu said the employees, who retired at the age of 60, had contracts of employment stating their retirement age as 65. He said instead, they were subjected to the inhuman treatment.

“We took our cases through numerous forums, including the then Minister of Local Government since in our qualified view the decision appeared to have sinister political connotations and motives taking into cognisance certain departments, sections and divisions in the city,” he said.