HARARE City Council has 3 500 critical vacant posts that need to be filled, Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda has disclosed. The posts are for engineers, doctors, nurses, technicians and other specialised skills required in the daily operations of council. Council has struggled to raise the US$6,5 million salary bill and often delays in paying its employees.

Speaking at a water conservation and zero littering campaign cocktail reception for business and diplomats Mr Masunda said the city has 9 400 workers, a good number that is wrongly deployed.

However, the ideal workforce for Harare is around 6 000 implying that the city has to either retrench the excess staff or retrain some to fill the critical 3 500 vacant posts.

Mr Masunda said a head count of all workers last year had shown that there are some in wrong positions whose competencies do not match the type of jobs assigned to them.

For the past four years the city has not employed. When the present council came in there were 11 887 workers. The number has gone down due to natural attrition, dismissals and retirements.

"We still need to down size and follow the painful decision. We now need to have a good look at our employees and see whether they are in the right positions. If not we need to retrain them," he said.