HARARE City Council is still paying its top officials, and in particular the town clerk and departmental heads, far above the pay scales approved by the Local Government Board, especially once all allowances are factored in.
This board, appointed by the Government, keeps a watchful eye on what all local authorities are doing and has set a sliding scale of pay schedules for top administrative staff that take into account the size of the city, town or rural district council that the administrators work for, and the sort of qualifications they are expected to hold.
This is meant to create a reasonably uniform structure for local government across the country.
It also stops a council from trying to economise by hiring sub-standard staff at ultra-low pay, as well as attacking what is now seen in Harare of senior staff padding their pay.
Generally the pay scales and qualifications for local government are supposed to be in line with those for civil servants in central government, so that everyone in the public sector is in the same sort of groups.
It is fairly obvious that the low calibre of so many city councillors in Harare in recent years, a problem that a succession of mayors from the same opposition party as the majority of councillors have highlighted in recent years, has allowed senior officials to run rings around their supposed masters when it comes to employment contracts.
The fact that the same officials have been happy to sign off the allowances paid to councillors for attending meetings, and arrange workshops with large subsistence and travel allowances for councillors in resorts some distance from Harare, suggests there could well be a bit of mutual back scratching when it comes to city finances.
The reason for zero action on the directives of the Local Government Board is obvious: the administrative officials who are supposed to implement the directive and draw up the approved conditions of service and pay scales to replace those declared null and void are precisely the same people who have been living in clover on the inflated scales.
So Harare continues to pay US$500 000 a month in salaries and allowances to its top officials, with the town clerk able to pull in US$30 000 a month. Besides this ordinary high pay, the top officials also benefit from some other fancy perks, such as holiday allowances which include travel and hotel costs for resorts in Zimbabwe, in the region and worldwide.
Middle and lower level council staff, and this includes the technical staff battling to keep basic services functioning even when the council cannot provide the capital equipment and the money for things like water treatment chemicals, are not being overpaid and are on the sort of standard pay scales for their levels of responsibility and qualifications found through the public sector.
Knowing now, thanks to evidence presented to the Commission of Inquiry into the affairs of Harare City Council, what was going on, the senior management suites cannot be fostering staff morale that wonderful in the municipal offices.
Ordinary staff have had delayed pay days and all sorts of other problems even getting what they are owed, thanks to the way liquid cash is siphoned off to the top dogs.
We suspect that when the pay of top council officials was being pushed up beyond the limits set by the Local Government Board, the usual arguments were presented, that high level staff would leave the council's service for the private sector if they were not paid this sort of money and given these sort of perks.
Well, considering how the top officials, with perhaps one or two exceptions, are ruining the city, most residents would be happy to see them storm out and join the private sector, although we suspect that having high-end city council service on your CV is unlikely to produce job offers at anything like the salaries they now earn. Residents would cheer as they walked out.
The Local Government Board may have to intervene more decisively if the Harare City Council, guided by its own defaulting officials, does not draw up a proper grading framework and salary scales.
This might mean sending in a team borrowed from the Public Service Commission who would know the public sector grading structure inside out and would be able to quickly draw up an appropriate grading and salary structure for Harare City Council.
Indeed, even if Harare is prepared to do the work itself, it would seem sensible for it to get technical advice from the Local Government Board and the Public Service Commission so that it gets it right on the first attempt, rather than having a structure going backwards and forwards between the board and the council until the present crowd of city officials have all reached retirement age.
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At the same time, the council, backed by the board or even directed by the board, should be implementing the sort of performance contracts for its top officials that the President considers so essential for the top layers of the civil service.
Under-performing officials, especially of they are seriously under-performing, could be reassigned to posts more suitable for their talents, or encouraged to leave council service.
At the same time, some sort of basic qualifications need to be laid down for local government councillors, especially those on the councils of complex organisations like a major city. In the past, city councillors were usually people who would have made their mark in life, in a profession or in business, and want to give back to their community or at least sort out what they saw as irritating deficiencies.
These days a lot of councillors try to live off their allowances, which were originally paid so that councillors were not out of pocket for expenses, being able to buy petrol to drive to meetings and pay their phone bills when replying to residents' queries and the like.
Regardless of party, councillors should have some basic skills and professional background if they are to be any good.
