Robert Mugabe to cap salaries of state-owned company executives

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe is planning to cap the salaries of executives of state-owned companies at $72,000 a year including benefits after an investigation by the BBC’s Brian Hungwe in Harare revealed that some chief executives were earning up to $500,000 (£300,000) a month.

“In the public eye, these exorbitant salaries and allowances are not only corrupt but also obscene,” Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the BBC. “The public’s outrage is justified.”

Several cases of tax evasion have also come to light as a result of the investigation: one chief executive of a state-owned health insurance company was receiving a wage of $230,000 while also receiving benefits of over $300,000 per month which weren’t taxed. Meanwhile the chief executive of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was receiving a monthly salary of $37,000 despite the fact that workers had not been paid for over six months.

Zimbabwe has yet to fully recover from the hyper-inflation which rocked its economy a few years ago. The country does not have its own currency, instead using the legal tender of eight other nations, meaning the economy is still very fragile. Zimbabwe also still has major corruption issues in its bureaucratic systems: it is currently ranked 175th of 177 in the global corruption index.

An opposition MP for the MDC, James Maridadi, said this was “just the beginning” of the investigation into ‘Salarygate’ and said there were a number of MPs and senior government officials involved in the misappropriation of state funds. The average wage in Zimbabwe is just $370 a month.