eBusiness Weekly
The government has finished drafting the employment contract for the post of executive director for the
Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF) and will be offering it to the successful candidate next week, a senior official has said.
Public Service Labour and Social Welfare permanent secretary, Simon Masanga, said that the contract had since been taken to the Corporate Governance Unit under the Office of the President and Cabinet
which had endorsed it.
“As you may be aware whenever we develop a contract for a chief executive officer it has to go to the Corporate Governance Unit for endorsement, which is what we have done,” he said. “We will be offering it to the successful candidate next week.”
Masanga said they would only disclose the identity of the individual once he/she accepted and signed the contract.
“Of course I already know the person but I cannot disclose their identity until they accept the offer,” he said.
Once the executive director is appointed, he/she will appoint the rest of the secretariat staff, who will take over from Ministry of Labour officials, who up to now have been performing the duties.
“Once we have done that, we are going to hive off the secretariat from the Ministry, so that it (the TNF) becomes independent and accountable to the three social partners.
The TNF is a platform for social dialogue, which brings together the Government, business and labour to discuss key socio-economic issues and make recommendations.
It’s founding principles and values are contained in the “Declaration of Intent Towards a Social Contract,” which the parties signed in 2001.
President Emmerson Mnagagwa in June 2019 launched the TNF Act, which provides a legal framework for reigniting and fostering social dialogue, which had collapsed 10 years ago due to mistrust and finger pointing among the parties.
Before the enactment of the enabling Act, the TNF had been a voluntary platform since 1998, with parties not bound by its resolutions.
According to the Act, the TNF will have a full-time secretariat headed by an executive director and funded by the Government.
Currently, the work of the secretariat is undertaken by Ministry of Labour staff, on an ad hoc basis.
Since its revival in 2019, the TNF has hit turbulence with the issue of salaries being the main sticking point as workers demanded payment of salaries in United States dollars, citing escalating prices of basic
commodities.
The Government and business have been fighting in the same corner in rejecting the proposal, citing the harm wrought on the economy by Covid-19, which has seen many companies scaling down operations, while others closed shop.
In September last year parties to the TNF agreed on measures to stabilise the economy through restraining price and wage demands to avoid runaway inflation.
The parties agreed on benchmarks for minimum salaries which should guide the various National Employment Councils during collective bargaining, with lowest negotiation set at US$150 per month.
They also agreed that those employers who did not charge exclusively in foreign currency would pay at least 65 percent of salaries in United States dollars, and the remainder in local currency at the existing
interbank rate.
NewZiana
