Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube on Monday urged the labour movement to be realistic in its salary demands, arguing that the local Zimbabwe Gold (ZWG) currency has stabilised significantly.
Ncube made the remarks following the release of the latest inflation figures by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat), which showed that year-on-year inflation for January 2026, as measured by the all-items ZWG Consumer Price Index (CPI), stood at 4.1%. This represents a sharp decline of 10.9 percentage points from the December 2025 rate of 15%.
Ncube has frequently clashed with civil servants, who have persistently demanded meaningful salary adjustments. Labour unions argue that wages, which averaged about US$540 before the introduction of successive economic reform programmes, have been severely eroded over the years.
Currently, civil servants receive a US$270 foreign-currency component alongside a local ZWG component equivalent to just over US$100. The situation has become so dire that, in some cases, school heads reportedly struggle to afford school fees for children attending the very institutions they run.
Recently, Ncube indicated that the government would not award salary increases until a job evaluation exercise is completed.
However, in a statement released on Monday, Ncube, buoyed by the achievement of single-digit inflation, called for cooperation from labour and realistic wage demands in light of what he described as a stabilising economic environment.
“To further guarantee the stability going forward, there is also a need for stakeholders, particularly business and labor to work closely with the government to entrench stability. Specifically business should exercise restraint in price setting, while workers would align their salary adjustment requests to inflation developments.
“On our part as the government, we have pegged salaries of the government and civil servants to USD, therefore changes in exchange rate and inflation are embedded,” he said.
Ncube also urged citizens to embrace the ZWG, saying it preserves value and remains an acceptable medium of exchange.
The remarks are, however, likely to frustrate workers who continue to decry low wages which, despite currency stabilisation, remain well below the cost of living. This is particularly significant given that government salaries have traditionally served as a benchmark across most sectors of the economy.
