Government was yesterday urged to undertake a process of biometric payroll registration of all the public service to address the huge salary imbalances.
This was revealed at a validation workshop for the Wage Structure and Labour Costs in Zimbabwe organised by National Economic Consultative Forum (NECF) in collaboration with USAID Strategic Economic Research Agency.
The call to adopt the biometric payroll registration made by Prosper Chitambara of Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ) follows a bloating public sector wage bill.
The growth in the public wage bill has outstripped growth in real domestic product with government employment accounting for a significant share of the labour force which is reportedly munching much of government revenue.
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“The biometric system will capture the data of each and every civil servant and will plug out ghost employees. This will reduce the public wage bill and the resource saved can be channelled to developmental projects,” said Chitambira.
He said the biometric payroll which has been implemented in countries like Ghana Nigeria and Kenya will be used to effect salary payments.
He added that, “Through the use of biometric public service employees and pensioners can be accurately identified and ghost workers can be easily removed from the pay roll.
Going forward he said government should downsized its labour force to make it leaner and efficient.
“The move to downsize is motivated and justified in terms of the size of the economy as well as the relatively low population size. Countries such as Sierra Leone and Uganda have taken the bold action of closing about a third of their ministries. In Kazakhstan in 1997, a presidential decree reduced the number of ministries from 21 to 14 and the number of government bodies from 47 to 24,”he said adding that high public wages may induce a shift of resources out of the private sector into the public sector
Speaking at the event Secretary for Public Service, Labour and Social Services, Ngoni Masoka said that labour costs in Zimbabwe are relatively higher compared to other African and Asian countries.
He said this situation had negative impacts on employment growth, prices of goods and services as well as competitiveness of local products on regional and international markets
He however said the ministry has already started restoring the legal and institutional frame work for wage determination.
“My ministry which is responsible for labour administration has already started laying the groundwork for revamping the legal and institutional framework for wage determination in the country,” he said.
Meanwhile Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) Secretary General Kenias Shamuyarira refuted claims that labour costs in Zimbabwe are high.
Most of our workers are earning close to +/- $1 per day. Regardless of the profits made by companies, workers’ salaries are still low,” fumed Shamuyarira.
