By Staff Reporter

GOVERNMENT will this month pay civil servants a cushioning once-off allowance of $400 dollars per worker, on top of their basic salaries.

This comes when the government workforce has intensified its demands for a living wage from their employer in the wake of rapid price increases that have rendered their salaries a mockery.

In a statement Thursday, APEX Council president Cecelia Alexander said an agreement was reached between government and the workers’ representative group, to pay each worker any additional $400.

“Through further negotiations and dialogue, we have achieved to make the government pay each and every civil servant the sum of $400-00 as a once off payment together with the salary of July regardless of one’s grade,” said Alexander in a statement.

Government is under pressure from its workforce to award them better wages in a country that has been seeing rapid price increase almost on a daily basis.

The country’s inflation rate, according to latest figures, stands a 176 percent, amid signs the Emmerson Mnangagwa government was finding it tough to rescue the economy from imminent collapse.

Civil servants early this week demanded government to pay them their US dollar equivalent wages using the prevailing inter-bank exchange rates.

They want their lowest paid worker to be paid $4 750 per month.