Give workers better remuneration- President ED Mnangagwa

Tatenda Mutumhe (Editor in Chief)

Workers ought to receive a living wage, whilst employers craft other sustainable measures of supporting employees that are not easily eroded, and those in the informal sector ought to be included in economic recovery plans, President Mnangagwa has said.

In his message to mark this year’s Workers Day celebrations, President Mnangagwa said the Covid-19 pandemic was a wake – up call, and one that stressed the need to include small to medium enterprises and the informal sector in all economic recovery measures and plans to proceed after the emergency.

Since last year, the Government had been adjusting workers’ earnings with a view to make them living wages. “The commitment to support and sustain the worker should and must always be there”, said the President.

“Government has continued to adjust your earnings with a view to making them living wages.Yet the goal of taming inflation and the general cost of living ,has largely remained elusive, an ungraspable mirage. Elusive, because of the succesisive droughts which continue to visit us, making our nation a net importer of food.

“Elusive because of punitive, illegal sanctions which continue to beset us, closing possibilities for our economy. And now even more elusive, because of the global Covid- 19 pandemic which has thrown us and the rest of of the world off rail, into a severe recession.

Predictably, our economy will close the year in the negative territory.So, too, will the economies of the world, including the strongest ones”, said the President.

Read the President’s speech here;

“From a consolidation of all this, every employer, in whatever sector of our economy, must and should think beyond the weekly or monthly wage.

“Over the years, we have realised how easily erodible wages are,especially in times of economic shocks destabilisations and instability. Now we have this new, dreadful factor of a viral pandemic.

“Clearly, the years ahead show all these as the conditioning norm for global businesses,in which case we are best advised to cushion the worker through a more resilient, shock-proof system of reward and resilience”

President Mnangagwa stressed the notion that the worker must have food, shelter, must be able to afford health services and being able to send children to school.

“This, dear compatriots must be the new thrust and ethic for us all ,what ever the sector we play in.” he said.

“Already ,Government has decided to include special well -tailored packages for SMEs and the informal sector in its overall post- Covid 19 Stimulus Recovery Measures which i shall announce shortly,” said the President.

As a long-term measure against any such pandemics in future, President Mnangagwa said, the government had to reorganise SMEs and the informal markets so that both were compliant with public health needs.