Zimbabwe teachers want pay in US dollars

ZwNews Chief Correspondent

Zimbabwe educators grouping, the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) says it wants salaries of it members paid in the United States of America currency.

The association says in line with the prevailing economic environment, where suppliers of basic goods and services are demanding foreign currency for commodities they supply, teachers are calling for government to pay them using US dollars.

ZIMTA says the move would cushion teachers, who had been greatly affected by the monetary and fiscal measures recently announced by the government, and have rendered them from fulfilling their financial obligations.

“Our demand is informed by the fact that teachers are no longer able to pay for basic commodities, including medical bills as providers are demanding foreign currency.

“The government should also be reminded that teachers have always been earning below the poverty datum line and as such were worse off and are now incapacitated,” says ZIMTA in a statement.

The call by the country’s educators come at the face of a depleting local bond currency, Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) against the US dollar.

Though the government maintains the bond and RTGS are at par with the green buck, on the ground this has proved to be false.

Analysts believe that the directive by the government that banks should separate RTGS from Foreign Currency Accounts, is a hidden admission by the state that the two are not equal.

Recently, another teachers’ grouping, the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ), also expressed similar sentiments, saying the separation of the two accounts was meant to erode their savings.

ARTUZ said their salaries which were negotiated in dollar terms, would be eroded once turned into bond currency through RTGS, and warned that they were going to reject the salaries, unless paid in US$.