GWERU – Cash-strapped Gweru City Council is set to lay off at least 600 workers in a move aimed at
cutting on its huge wage bill, the Mayor has said.
For the past three years, the council has been mulling to downsize its workforce by half.
Gweru City Council currently has 1 400 workers on its payroll including contract workers.
Gweru Mayor Councillor Hamutyinei Kombayi said for the council to effectively improve service
delivery, there was need to retrench 600 workers adding that operational costs were too high,
making it difficult for council to provide quality services to residents and ratepayers.
“I know it’s not good, but there are drastic measures that need to be taken for Gweru City Council to
be on the right track.
“First thing is that, we can’t have a director (Finance) Mr Churu, assistant director Masimba,
assistant director Verenga, it goes across the whole sector and we are saying the labour force that is
required to be paid is so much and the structure is not going accordingly. This is just but one
structure in one of the organisations I am involved in. Others are scaling their structures and our
operational cost is causing the company not to make a profit.
“We are not working for a profit but operational cost is causing us not to have sound service
delivery and it is painful,” said the outspoken Mayor.
Kombayi said it would be wise to lay off about 600 workers as some of them were allegedly
employed on political grounds by councillors.
He expressed concern that some of the workers, who were engaged through politicians, do not even
report for duty and would be paid their salaries at the end of the month.
“First issue, it’s painful, our workload is high we are supposed to retrench some workers, almost 600
people have to be retrenched because people were being employed through political measures
where by those in power would just say I am a councillor and I have employed my people and half of
that labour force does not report for work,” Cllr. Mayor Kombayi.
He however, did not state if the motion to have the workers retrenched was adopted by council or
whether a job evaluation exercise was done.
Gweru Residents and Ratepayers Association (GRRA) Executive Director Cornelius Selipiwe said they
have no problem if the retrenchment is based on scientific evidence.
He said it was not wise for council to lay off workers without making proper research.
““If it is retrenchment based on scientific research then it’s okay … If you are retrenching, you really
need to do proper analysis in terms of the work to be done and the human resources you have…
what we need is scientific evidence…”
GRRA Executive Director said council was failing to prioritise the money which it is getting from
residents and other stakeholders.

Silipiwe said council should come up with innovative ideas and revive income generating entities like
Go Beer Breweries and Quarry Mine and properly manage some of the resources available for
council to generate revenue.
Meanwhile, speaking on the controversial issue of malfunctioning robots in the Central Business
District, Mayor Kombayi said previous councils, since 2013 have been failing to make the contractor
repair the robots.
The Mayor said he has been pushing for the robots to be repaired and to have the drainage system
improved in the city.