By Cde Patriot Sunungura
The Leader of Government Business in Parliament who doubles as the minister of justice Ziyambi Ziyambi, last week declared that civil servants have no reason to complain about their salaries because the ZiG currency is “very stable.”
Yes, True Patriots we agree — it’s stable like a one-legged chair.
“Perhaps, let me preface by saying that there has not been a general increase in prices in this country,” Ziyambi said confidently, as if the average civil servant could still afford bread on a daily basis without a bank loan.
“Even our currency is very stable, and the prices have largely not risen to levels that we can say indicate that we need a cost-of-living adjustment,” added Ziyambi.
This is, of course, excellent news for anyone who survives on air and patriotism.
Unfortunately, the rest of the civil servants, who foolishly insist on eating, are struggling to understand how their meagre monthly incomes are supposed to cover rent, food, transport, and the occasional luxury of soap.
But fear not, beloved True Patriots, the government has a wonderful solution: denial!
Gone are the days when teachers, nurses, and police officers could focus solely on their jobs.
Now, they’ve diversified into full-blown entrepreneurship — whether they like it or not.
Teachers spend their evenings selling airtime and tomatoes, because molding young minds doesn’t pay as well as molding the market price of onions.
Nurses have taken up crochet and poultry farming, because stitching wounds pays less than stitching sweaters.
Some have even resorted to the oldest profession under the sun — prostitution, of course.
Police officers, in a tragic twist of irony, now spend their nights running from municipal police while illegally vending — the same laws they enforce by day.
Well, the rabbit hole goes deeper. Let’s not forget the traffic cops who, after a long day of shaking down kombis for bribes, must now dodge their own colleagues when they set up their own “Mushika-shika” (pirate taxis).
Since 2019, when inflation took off like a ZUPCO bus being chased by unpaid drivers, civil servants have watched their paychecks melt into economic dust.
With official monthly earnings averaging just over US$250, even surviving now requires a strategic blend of divine intervention, backyard hustling, and pretending rent doesn’t exist.
But who needs rent when you’ve got a “stable currency”?
On July 14, a small group of civil servants held a flash protest at the New Government Complex.
They marched to the ministry of finance, chanting salary demands, clutching placards, and hoping that someone, somewhere, might finally hear them.
Instead, finance minister Mthuli Ncube was away — likely somewhere with working escalators and affordable meat.
They were met by deputy minister Kudakwashe Mnangagwa, who nodded sympathetically and vanished like the purchasing power of the stable ZiG.
“Talks are ongoing in the Tripartite Negotiation Forum.”* Ah, the TNF — a forum as effective as Nelson Chamisa’s “God is in it” political gospel.
Morale across the civil service is in free fall. Schools run on fumes.
Hospitals are glorified first-aid stations.
Hahaha, and the police have developed a sixth sense for which kombi drivers pay bribes and which ones will crash into a ditch before the bribe is complete.
What’s happening to Zimbabwe’s civil servants isn’t just neglect.
It’s a silent socio-economic genocide, performed to the soothing background hum of propaganda.
Ministers preach data stability. Civil servants live in real-world chaos.
The difference between the two is measured in tomatoes — sold one by one, on street corners, by people who once dreamt of dignified service, not survival.
Well, while the ZiG remains ‘stable,’ the people remain broke
By day they serve. By night, they sell tomatoes — their pay slips stable in worthlessness.
