BULAWAYO – The government has threatened to dock the pay of civil servants who do not turn up for work without official leave in a move which appeared to target teachers.

In a directive issued Friday, the Public Service Commission (PSC) said “ministries will indicate cases where personnel have been officially excused from duty to ensure the inclusion of such personnel on the payroll.”

“The Salary Service Bureau has been instructed to process salary payments for civil servants strictly on the basis of work attendance registers submitted by government ministries and departments,” PSC secretary Jonathan Wutawunashe said.

It was not clear how the mammoth task of keeping attendance registers and capturing the data in the pay database would be achieved.

Zimbabwe Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions spokesman David Dzatsunga said: “We don’t think that absenteeism from work should be treated in a pro-rata manner. Absenteeism is a disciplinary issue and first they should start by asking why one is absent from work before you can deduct money from their salary. It must be a result of a disciplinary hearing.”

The PSC directive came after the ministry of primary and secondary education revealed last week that at least 24 percent of teachers – who make up the largest chunk of public sector workers – had not reported for work citing “incapacitation” over low pay.

Edgar Moyo, the deputy minister of primary and secondary education, last week threatened teachers with disciplinary action.

“Teachers shouldn’t violate rights of learners in order to compensate for theirs. They must be patient and their problems will be solved,” Moyo said.

The Zimbabwe Teachers Union (ZIMTA), representing most of Zimbabwe’s 136,000 teachers, last week said its members – particularly those stationed in rural areas – had failed to travel as schools opened because transport companies were charging fares in foreign currency, which they do not earn.

ZIMTA CEO Sifiso Ndlovu said: “All teachers who were supposed to report to school committed to go to work. I can’t guarantee whether they are all at work, but they are committed.”

Paul Mavima, the acting public service minister, escalated the row with teachers after claiming that some unions were working with western embassies to destabilise the government.

He told the Voice of America: “What they are concerned about is to criticise the government despite its efforts to improve the welfare of teachers. They do this in order to get funds from the donors to promote violence. What we know is that they are being funded by foreign countries to destabilise the country.”

Progressive Teacher’ Union president Takavafira Zhou hit back: “Prof Mavima is fast becoming a human epidemic. Incapacitation of teachers has been confirmed by two parliamentary portfolio committees. Mavima’s homiletic bellicose that teachers are capacitated when they earn salaries less than US$200 and far less than US$550 they earned in 2018 is baffling.”