Cash-strapped Zimbabwe offers workers land to replace cash bonus

The cash-strapped Zimbabwe government has offered to give its workers land and other non-monetary benefits as payment for their 2016 annual bonuses.

However, the civil servants rejected the payment options, demanding that they be paid in cash.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira and central bank governor John Mangudya on Wednesday met with the workers unions and offered to pay the workers with residential stands, a cash stipend coupled with non-monetary benefits and property investment bonds.

Mupfumira was quoted by the state-owned Herald newspaper Thursday as saying that another meeting will now be held on Feb. 20 to map the way forward and hopefully conclude the discussions.

Raymond Majongwe, leader of a teachers union, was quoted as saying that civil servants want their bonus payment in cash and described meetings with the government as "cosmetic engagements" to buy time.

According to the newspaper report, Majongwe said workers unions were able to negotiate for residential stands for their members with local authorities and did not require the assistance of government.

"What we want is our money and when it is coming," he said.

The Zimbabwe government has been struggling to pay its workers on time for over a year due to cash flow challenges as a result of the underperforming economy.

It staggered bonus payments for 2015 and only managed to finish paying them around June last year.

The government wage bill has been gobbling more than 80 percent of collected revenue, a scenario that both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have described as unsustainable. Endit