By Staff Reporter

MIDLANDS State University (MSU) lecturers have written to their employer demanding a wage review while arguing their current RTGS based salaries have shrunk to an equivalent US$200 a month due to the prevailing inflationary environment.

Writing as Midlands State University Lecturers’ Association (MSULA), the mentors said their economic status has rendered them too incapacitated to continue reporting for duty as normal.

“Lecturers’ salaries have drastically fallen to the equivalent of around US$200 per month given the RTGS$ continues to lose value against other currencies,” wrote MSULA in a letter addressed to the institution’s vice chancellor this past week.

“This salary now fails to take any family person for a week, hence we wish to notify you that we are now incapacitated.

“In this regard, we will also try out best to have finished marking of exams by 30th of June 2019.”

MSU has an enrolment of over 20 000 students and also has foreign students from Sudan, Namibia and Swaziland, among other countries.

The cost of living in the country continues to go up as prices are now beyond the reach of many because of the RTGS$ which continues to lose value every day.

Teachers and nurses have been joined by workers in the private sector to press for a wage review from their employers or the payment of their salaries in the much more stable US dollar.

So dire is the situation that the price of bread which was only 90 cents in January last year, is now being sold for between RTGS$6 and $7.