STATE-EMPLOYED nurses have rejected a 22.5 percent salary hike offered by the government raising the prospect of a damaging strike for the country's struggling health sector.
The Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) dismissed the proposed increment as a mockery.
Under the proposal, 7.5 percent of the offer which was made during a meeting between the ZINA and the Health Services Board (HSB) would have comprised a direct salary hike while the balance would come as housing and transport allowances.
The adjustment would have added US$57 to the package of the lowest paid health worker, increasing their monthly salary to about US$310.
But ZINA President Regina Smith said the government’s offer was way below the poverty datum line which is now estimated at more than US$500 and therefore unacceptable.
Smith, who is also the Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital Matron, said negotiations with the HSB had reached a deadlock adding ZINA members – some 6000 nurses across the country – were now waiting for another scheduled round of talks before deciding the way forward.
The ZINA chief said her members found it difficult to relate government’s default plea that state coffers are practically empty with the recent decision to award legislators backdated allowances of up to US$15 000 each.
The government also splashed millions of dollars on new vehicles ministers, their deputies and senior civil servants.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti argues the government wage bill, at more than 60 percent of overall income and expenditure, is already too big and unsustainable.
Meanwhile, the deadlock in the nurses negotiations comes after teachers and other state employees – most of whom earn just over US$200 -- recently called a five-day strike after rejecting an average salary hike of about US$87.
The government insists that with the economy still struggling to recover from a decade-long recession and little foreign assistance coming through, wage demands by state workers cannot be met.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai suggested early this year that additional revenues from diamond sales could be used to improve the working conditions of civil servants.
The government expects at least US$600 million in additional funds from diamond sales but Biti allocated the funds to various infrastructure projects as well as a constitutional referendum and general elections expected this year.