Finance, Local Government and Youth Indeginisation and Empowerment Ministers Biti Chombo and Kasukuwere must buck up their Labour management ideas or zip up before causing further anxieties within Industry. Finance Minister Hon Tendai Biti was recently put in a spot when he somehow found himself declaring that the Labour Relations Act was too rigid and prejudicial to employers intending to turn around companies through retrenchments.
The ink had not yet dried on the Herald report where he made the startling disclosure when the same publication disclosed that the company the Hon Minister chose as an example of the debilitating effects of retrenchment under the current Labour Laws has met with another setback.
This time it is not the $1.3million the company has been ordered to pay the 400 employees it has targeted for retrenchment.
Rather it is the loss of $1million due to the Iceland Volcanic ash that has led to a 5day flight suspension in most European countries.
Whereas the minister had intimated that it would require the Airline to dispose of its last Boeing 737 to meet retrenchment packages for the employees under current Labour legislation he claims is not in sync with prevailing economic conditions, it now transpires that the 1 week losses the Airline incurred as a result of the flying ban in Europe alone was just about the $1.3 million it requires to lay off the employees.
It brings into focus the inaccuracy of the Minister’s assumptions and permutations that to foot the bill the Airline needs to dispose its only operational long haul carrier.
It appears a week’s uninterrupted lights to and from Europe alone are all the Airline needs to raise the revenue required for it to foot the bill it has been ordered to pay to its retrenchees.
Why then was the Finance Minister hiding this evidence and misrepresenting that the law was skewed in favour of the employees to a point that the airline would have to dispose its critical asset to meet retrenchment costs?
The reported losses of the airline over the week on its European routes may be gross but even if say 60% was in operational costs, it would need to fly to Europe for a paltry 3 weeks to raise enough profits to meet the retrenchment package.
There is some evident worrying cover up on the part of the government on the extent of its revenue that suggests that the funds are being misapplied at the expense of the workers.
This kind of dishonesty does not help the building of trust between the government and workers at a time when revenues to the government from toll bridges, mining and agricultural exports are not being transparently accounted for to the satisfaction of the citizenry at large.
We implore the Finance Minister to stop playing Mickey Mouse games with our intelligence and disclose how much revenue the government is receiving from taxes and all its other revenue generating operations and inform the nation where the money is being used.
Youth Indigenization and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere is at variance with finance minister Biti’s disclosure that companies are in distress and incompetent to pay hefty severance packages to workers.
To the contrary Kasukuwere appears to believe that companies worth above $500000.00 are in a position to pay, not just their workers reasonably, but also to foot the extra burden of a special Indigenisation tax to the State.
The special Indigenisation tax apropos by the Minister is to fund the purchase of shares in the same companies by indigenous Zimbabweans whom he has already crafted regulations to enable them to obtain 51% stake holding in the same companies for free.
After being told that legislating for free access of shares amounting to 51% of the value of foreign owned companies was tantamount to legislating impunity that is ultra vires Section 16 of the Constitution Minister Kasukuwere in his wisdom or is it lack of it, thinks he can circumvent the Constitutional obstacle by levying the 51% stake in the companies as a tax the government will then doll out to bankrupt prospective indigenous beneficiaries of his choice.
If companies are overburdened by the Labour act and unable to pay regionally fair and competitive wages and severance packages as disclosed by the Finance Minister where will they find the money to pay government the Indigenisation tax?
Could it be that the reason why the government wants the Labour Act amended in favour of employers is to enable the state to then demand the savings on salaries by the employers to finance acquisition of shares in the same companies by the connected beneficiaries of Indigenisation?
And how will the proposed Indigenisation tax comply with the requirements of the Companies act prohibiting companies from using surpluses to finance insider trading by directly or indirectly using their surpluses to buy shares in the entities?
There is something definitely remiss in a government where Cabinet Ministers compete to announce policies that are diametrically opposed to each other.
The directives Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo has been dishing out to Local Authorities are a case in point.
He has ordered Harare City Council to pay a whopping $5000 per day sitting allowances each to a special committee he has set up to investigate alleged improper evictions from council owned properties in the local authority.
In a country where average monthly salaries for workers are no more than $200.00 per month daily allowances of $500000.00 are obscene and the fact that they are being authorized by a Cabinet s Minister and imposed on a quasi government undertaking implies affordability that the Finance Minister alleges is remiss in companies.
Mutare city council has been ordered to pay former town commissioners he appointed in place of the elected council hefty retirement packages following their redundancy after the 2008 elections.
Specifically Minister Chombo has ordered Mutare City Mayor Lesley James to pay former Commission Chairman Fungayi Chaeruka and his deputy Irene Zindi both Zanu PF loyalists he unilaterally appointed as Commissioners after dismissing the elected Council hefty retirement packages that make the retrenchment packages workers can ever get through the Labour Act a mockery.
Chaeruka must be paid 4 months’ salary for every completed year he served the Town as Commission chairman amounting to $ 96 000.00plus 8 months free rentals and rates estimated at $800.00, 100 litres of fuel for three months valued at $720.00, Pungwe Breweries Board sitting allowances amounting to $1440.00, Free Car valued at no less than $58 000.00, free business stand estimated at $100 000.00 and a free mobile phone and line valued at approximately $$1000.00.
Former deputy Chairperson Irene Zindi has been authorized to be given a better free up market house estimated to cost council no less than $300 000.00 in exchange for the current house she was allocated and retained when she became redundant.
Town Councils raise the bulk of their revenues from taxing residents and they are struggling to deliver services like water, refuse collection, street lighting, road servicing, health and educational facilities not to mention social amenities for residents.
The common excuse given is that they are short of funds yet the minister responsible is adamant they have funds to pay preferred individuals such hefty packages.
It should be noted that the Labour Court is paralysed to make rulings on retrenchment packages and back payments to workers illegally dismissed prior to February 2009 because the country had not adopted multicurrency usage and neither Cabinet nor the Judiciary has given them guidance on how to convert upheld worker claims to multicurrency.
Yet when it comes to redundant Zanu PF appointed Local Authority Commissioners like Zindi and Chaeruka, Minister Chombo can order Councils to pay in US dollars notwithstanding that their services were under the Zimbabwe Dollar era.
Why the special treatment and more importantly how did Minister Chombo arrive at these US dollar denominated packages which conversion the Labour Courts say they cannot do without Cabinet or Supreme Court guidance?
It all goes back to show how Minister Biti was ambushed to speak against workers that form the bulk of the supporters of his party in order for Zanu PF to pull the rug under his feet and portray him as anti-workers and thus alienate his party with workers.
Knowing how headstrong Minister Biti is and has been in inter-Party negotiations Zanu PF have got what they wanted and are now effectively building a case for MDC-T factionalism that are meant to turn party senior executives against each other and further alienate them with supporters.
The solution does not lie with Party spokesman dismissing Zanu PF factionalism conspiracies within the party but rather the Finance Minister who is also party Secretary General coming out strongly in support of his party grassroots and clarifying what he meant when he alluded to the imbalance in the Labour Act that favours workers at the expense of employers.
A starting point is to show why Ministers Chombo and Kasukuwere are proposing and ordering impossible payments to their party supporters and how that impacts on the ability of companies to pay reasonable wages to workers.
Alternatively and more appropriately the three Ministers must stay clear of the Labour Relations portfolio and leave it to be managed by the appropriate Minister Paurina Mpariwa who has a better understanding of what happens on shop floors the trio has never worked on.
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