Harare - Civil servants in Zimbabwe on Friday announced an open-ended strike after turning down what they called the government's "pathetic offer" of a fractional wage increase. "There has hasn't been a positive development to improve the offer the government gave us (in January), which has been rejected," said Tendai Chikowore, the president of Zimbabwe Public Service Association (ZPSA), after a meeting of about 5,000 unionized workers in the capital Harare, where they decided on immediate strike action.

 

The ZPSA represents around 200,000 civil servants, mostly teachers.

 

The workers had asked for the salary of the lowest-paid public workers to be increased from 120 dollars a month currently to 630 dollars.

 

The cash-strapped power-sharing government, which is still recovering from a severe economic meltdown in 2008, had offered to increase their salaries to 122 dollars in February, rising to 134 dollars in April.

 

Many teachers failed to turn up to school on Friday in anticipation of the decision, which followed the expiration of a two- week ultimatum by the ZPSA and associated unions to the government.

 

"This (striking) is the only language the government understands. They stretched our patience for a long time. Enough is enough," Takavafira Zhou, president of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, said.

 

Public Service Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro appeared surprised.

 

"I am yet to get that information (of the strike announcement)," he told the German Press Agency dpa, adding: "I thought negotiations would break this impasse."

 

The dispute comes as the unity government, headed by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, prepares to mark its first anniversary on February 11, with little to show in terms of reforms.

 

For most of the past year, Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have been at each other's throats, both accusing the other party of stalling progress towards economic recovery.

 

"When the GNU (government of national unity) was formed we rejoiced as we thought it was the panacea to our socio-political and economic challenges," Chikowore said.

 

Accusing the government of being more interested in self- enrichment than the welfare of workers, she said: "Today we wonder whether this was a correct premise."