The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) has introduced a US$200 allowance for employees, on top of their normal salaries paid in local currency.
NRZ General Manager Ms Respina Zinyanduko announced the development while giving oral evidence to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructure Development on Monday.
She said the parastatal may not be competing with other private companies in terms of salary figures, but their employees were grateful for the cushion.
Ms Zinyanduko said media reports that her company was at loggerheads with its employees over a number of issues including unilateral dismissals and non-payment of salaries were a mere creation of dismissed workers. She said:
NRZ is not in dispute with its employees who are in service, if you check our records we are paying our salaries on time. We don’t have enough money to pay or compete with other private companies but we are however paying US$200 in allowances over and above their RTGS salaries all meant to cushion our employees. Given the history of NRZ where they are coming from, the employees are grateful even though not fully satisfied because they always expect better.
A number of state-owned enterprises resolved to cushion their employees with USD allowances, imitating the central government which introduced USD allowances for civil servants, initially starting as COVID-19 allowances. This was necessitated by the depreciation of the Zimbabwe dollar which resulted in the erosion of workers’ salaries.