Non-monetized incentives for civil servants: Who exactly is benefitting?

by Mathew Unique Dube

The Zimbabwean government, through Public Service Commission has made pledges to unveil non-monetory benefits for civil servants. Mostly, this has been hyped as a success, with headlines about the workers smiling all way to the benefits.


However, the lived experience of the workers indicate a different scenario. Or maybe because I am stationed in Binga District, the hot-spot of marginalisation, these things are happening only in privileged parts of the country? But I have civil servant friends across the country, who also confirm that nothing is materializing in their areas. So who are the civil servants benefitting from the hyped non-monetory incentives?

If an intervention is targeted at a specific group of people, surely they must feel the impact of its implementation. As you can see, Xinhua 31/01/31 published an article titled, " Zimbabwe government avails housing facility for civil servants after a strike threat." Allegedly, the housing facility was to be rolled country wide ( and this implies that even in Binga District, one or two people could have benefitted- this is an national intervention right?). I am yet to see a beneficiary in my vicinity, let alone in the neighboring districts, for example Hwange, Lupane & Tsholotsho. So where is this happening exactly? It is 7 years after this publication, yet the postulate adequacy reader is at zero (postulate adequacy is a principle stating that the intervention must be felt by the targeted beneficiaries). The government can not escape this one because, the quoted article alleged that a 60 million dollar facility was already signed by the Public Service Commission. Who were the beneficiaries of this facility? Subsequently, the PSC, has repeatedly emphasized on these non-monetory incentives, yet we as civil servants only read about them. If they are meant for us, we need to feel and access them, not only near the spotlight ( Harare or Bulawayo), but at the periphery as well (the Hotspot of marginalisation).
The Public Service Commission has a duty to run awareness programs about such incentives, where upon, civil servants are exposed to the policy and statutory tools forming the basis of the interventions. This can help promote transparency and accountability, or else we will continue taking the so called non-monetory incentives as an aloof rhetoric put up for grand standing.

I reckon a time between 2020 and 2022, where we were made to complete forms indicating the form of benefits we preferred. I had indicated that I needed land (a plot for agricultural activities). To this date, the feedback back is still pending. It must be understood that even if Rome was not built on a day, it was surely not built on lies and grand standing. After all, incentives to the civil servants, in the form of access to farm land, have a potential to reverberate, creating employment down the line. We can not take the employer seriously through the word of mouth- pledges & promises, but through actions. Actions are the game changers. If the non-monetory incentives are a reality, civil servants as the targeted beneficiaries must feel them, without which everything will remain a mere talk.

I am writing this on a personal capacity, as an aggrieved civil servant. But am also a trainee policy analyst, teacher at a high school in Binga District.

BA- University of Venda, BA Hons & MDev- UNISA, Currently PhD Candidate- University of Johannesburg. Mathew Unique Dube

Source: Byo24