ZIMBABWE Law and Practice Contributed by: Nellie Tiyago and Rudo Magundani, Scanlen & Holderness
10.2 Employee Compensation Minimum Wage
continuity of employment of such employees shall be deemed not to have been interrupted. The transferee or new entity can still negotiate better or less favourable working conditions with the employ - ees. However, no rights to social security, pensions, gratuities or other retirement benefits may be dimin - ished by any such agreement without the prior written authority of the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. 11. Intellectual Property and Data Protection 11.1 Intellectual Property Considerations for Approval of FDI Intellectual property is not a primary consideration for approval of FDI in Zimbabwe. 11.2 Intellectual Property Protections Zimbabwe recognises and regulates the protection of intellectual property through the Companies and Intellectual Property Office. The main legislation is the Trade Marks Act, Intellectual Property Tribunal Act, Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, Patents Act, Geographical Indications Act, Industrial Designs Act, Integrated Circuit Layout Designs Act, Merchandise Marks Act and Plant Breeders Rights Act. Intellectual property rights are enforced through the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) and ZIMRA. In addi - tion, Zimbabwe has instituted an Intellectual Property Tribunal (IPT) with the authority to decide on civil intel - lectual property disputes. 11.3 Data Protection and Privacy Considerations The Cyber and Data Protection Act governs the pro - cessing of personal information of public and private bodies, prevents unauthorised and arbitrary use, col - lection, processing, transmission and storage of data of identifiable persons, provides for the regulation of data protection and establishes the Data Protection Authority. Under the Act, a data controller may not transfer personal information about a data subject to a third party who is in a foreign country without putting
An employer cannot pay remuneration that is below the stipulated minimum wage. The minimum wage is set in the CBA. Where there is no applicable CBA, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare sets a general minimum wage. As of 22 November 2024, the general minimum wage was set at USD150 per month. Employers in agriculture and employers for domestic workers are exempted from paying the Local employees are required to remit the following taxes, which must be deducted by the employer and paid to ZIMRA: • PAYE for employees who earn USD300 or more (the tax brackets currently prescribe the maximum employee tax payable at 50% with respect to an employee earning USD20,001 or more); • the Zimbabwe development fund levy, payable at the expense of the employer at a rate of 1% of the wage bill; • the AIDS levy; • accident prevention and worker’s compensation insurance; and • the national social security tax (as detailed herein). Expatriates minimum wage. Tax Obligations Expatriates are exempt to the extent permitted by any agreement between governments that may be in place, including bilateral taxation agreements and DTAs. 10.3 Employment Protection Whenever a company in which any persons are employed is alienated or transferred in any way what - soever, the employment of such persons is deemed to be transferred to the new entity. However, the new entity can lawfully terminate employment contracts – eg, by mutual agreement of retrenchment. If there is no lawful termination of the employment contracts, the employees are deemed to be trans - ferred to the transferee of the undertaking under terms and conditions not less favourable than those that applied immediately before the transfer, and the
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