Utilitarianism vs Pragmatism…Government’s new dilemma

20 Apr, 2018 - 00:04 0 Views
Utilitarianism vs Pragmatism…Government’s new dilemma Minister Patrick Chinamasa

eBusiness Weekly

Taurai Mangudhla
Some philosophical pennyworth proclaims that action which results in the greatest good for the utility of society tends to be the best action. The Government recently made major concessions to improve working conditions for the country’s doctors.

But the move has now sparked similar demands among other health service providers, and could spread across the civil service. This could further tighten the fiscal space that is already suffering from dwindling revenues.

The move sets the wrong precedence at a time the civil service has perennially sought improved service conditions and flies in the face of efforts to create fiscal space for social and capital spending in the country from a critical position where recurrent expenditure, mostly composed of salaries and benefits for civil servants, gobbled in excess of 90 percent of the budget.

Growing pressure from the civil service also comes in an election year and thwarts Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa’s 2016 commitment to the International Monetary Fund under the Staff Monitored Program (SMP) to reduce Government’s wage bill from levels of over 80 percent of revenues to 40 percent.

Government, through the IMF’s SMP made commitment to reduce recurrent expenditure to sustainable levels in line with international best practices.

Minister Chinamasa even made assurances to start cutting wage costs by way of a staff rationalisation through a combination of methods including retiring the old guard, a skills audit and offering incentives for retirement.

In his 2018 National Budget, Minister Chinamasa said Government would abolish 3700 national youth office posts across the country and retire civil servants above the age of 65 as measures to cut wage costs. Allowances and benefits were also cut in the budget of December 2017.

Four months later a departure from this expectedly pragmatic move is beginning to unfold.

Government gave in to the demands of doctors who were striking for better service conditions for close to two months and now finds itself in a pickle as more ultimatums come.

According to the agreement between the Government and the doctors early April, on-call allowance rates for junior doctors was reviewed to $7, 50 per hour on the basis of a maximum 106 working hours per month, from the previous $5 per hour on the basis of a capped 72 hours working hours per month while the on-call allowances will be paid on an unclaimable rate of $1 200 per month.

On-Call allowance sliding scale rate has also been reviewed to $720-$1 680 per month, from $216-$504 per month

Night duty allowances have been reviewed to an unclaimable sliding scale rate of between $207 and $303 per month, from a claimable sliding scale rate of between $65 and $91 per set of seven days. The agreement also increased allowances for nurses.

Standby allowances for nurses based at rural health centres have been reviewed to an unclaimable rate of $240 per set per month, from claimable rate of $70 for a set of seven days while an allowance for nurse managers has also been introduced at a non-claimable rate of between $350 and $450 per month.

The maximum standby has been limited to a maximum of 14 days per month. Medical allowances have also been increased to 20 percent of basic salary, from 15 percent. The Government also committed to correct grading anomalies in the health sector.

Immediately after the new treaty, the Zimbabwe Nurses’ Association insisted plans to down tools would go ahead as the body and its members were not satisfied with what the Government was offering them.

And nurses have kept their word indeed, downing tools this week, to cripple major health service centres across the country as they demand more on top of the sweeteners they have just been offered.

Nurses said they needed more money and would only report to work after payments were made into their accounts.

Government discharged all the striking nurses in a directive by Vice President Constantine Chiwenga who heads the social cluster.

VP Chiwenga called on the Health Services Board to employ all qualified but unemployed nurses and recall retired nurses to fill the vacant posts.

Despite the dramatic turn of events in what is an apparent move to end the strikes which the VP described as politically motivated, the rest of the civil service is seen joining the struggle for better working conditions as Government’s deal with health workers has set the wrong precedence.

While there could have been clear need to improve the working conditions for doctors, the adjustments were rather dramatic with increases of more than 100 percent on some allowances. Already, Government had been under pressure to improve conditions of service for teachers.

The amalgamated rural teachers union of Zimbabwe has already warned it will not accept anything below a 200 percent pay rise in January this year. However, the collective civil service representative body the Apex Council has indicated it will settle for an adjustment commensurate with the poverty datum line.

ZimStat reported the country’s PDL was between $430 and $574 although some analysts argue it could have now gone up to $700 due to inflationary pressures.

Salary adjustments of as much as 200 percent across the board in the civil service, accounting for the lion’s share of formal economy in Zimbabwe, could have devastating effects on inflation and cripple the nation which has suffered successive budget overruns largely due to wage costs, crowding our social and capital expenditure.

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