Hundreds of teachers and other civil servants who had gone on study leave at various school and universities throughout the country at the beginning of the current semester have been ordered to go back to their workstations because Government has no money to pay relief staff.
This order is despite the fact that the civil servants had paid fees ranging from $525 to $800 for the semester depending on the programme. The civil servants were also irked by the fact that the fees they paid was not reimbursed and some of them had moved their properties from their workstations to other places.
Shattered civil servants left the universities just days after they had settled and some actually cried when the news was broken to them, said sources at the Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo where about 60 students were forced to leave.
“It is not all civil servants who were ordered to go back but there is a large number which was said to have had no study leave clearance letters from the employer,” said a source.
The Mirror is reliably informed that teachers who had joined various universities were phoned by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education last week and ordered to go back to their workstations.
The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Lazarus Dokora said the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare was the best to comment on the matter as they were the employer. The Minister of Public Service, Prisca Mupfumira said she can only comment after a week.
“I need to verify this information so please get hold me after a week,” said Mupfumira.
The Mirror is informed that Government had to withdraw the civil servants because the bill to pay salaries to the relief workers threatened to balloon the wage bill. In addition to paying the salaries for the relief workers, Government would also pay half salaries to get comments from the Universities were fruitless. -Mirror