By Own Correspondent

HEALTH sector salary negotiations recently hit a snag  abruptly stalling due to the employer’s reluctance to kick start a meaningful conversation in a development prompting the sector to suspect a third force underhand choking progress.

In a recent update the Health Apex Council Spokesperson, Lloyd Sarai said the sector was isolated in April this year when the government paid out US$50 increment to other civil servants.

He said while some Civil servants are now earning US$250 and around ZW$180 000 in salaries and allowances combined amid further expectations of US$ allowance to increase to US$300 plus a further ZWL increment.

The plight of nurses and the rest of the health sector  remains dire as they are still earning US$200 Covid19 allowance over and above ZW$26 133 basic salary, transport allowance of ZW$2 426, housing allowance of ZW$ 2 776, H factor ZW$5 483 and special civil service allowance ZW$5 483.

“On 15 June when the employer convened a bipartite negotiating meeting, this was after a year without talks. The talks did not yield anything as the employer did not bring anything meaningful to the table,” he said,” he said.

He said there is  a situation where the employer dictates the composition of  the Health Apex team  posing the risk of assigning a compromised team.

“We strongly feel that we should select our team without any inference from the employer. We also have a situation where some health workers are not benefiting from neither health sector specific allowances nor what the rest of other civil servants will have been given,”  he said.

He added that  dialogue is the only way out and anything short of it may hint at the existence of a third force trying to bring health workers on a collision course with their employer.