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Cde Kasukuwere

Municipal Reporter
Harare City Council workers who have gone for six months without pay have urged Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Saviour Kasukuwere to intervene, accusing the city of infringing upon their rights.

Harare Municipality Workers’ Union executive chairman, who is also the employee party chairman in the Harare Municipal Undertaking, Mr Cosmas Bungu said council workers have turned into perpetual beggars, who are surviving on handouts from well-wishers.

“We want to reiterate that the City of Harare is not above the law as their behaviour seems to suggest. In terms of the International Labour Organisation Convention against forced labour, the city fathers are in flagrant contravention of the law by deliberately failing to pay council employees their outstanding salaries for the past six months and bonuses for 2015 in contravention of Statutory Instrument 135/ 12.

“We plead with the Minister of Local Government Cde Kasukuwere to assist us in this regard like we have been doing all along. The workers and their families are suffering as their children are being sent back from school for failure to pay school fees and being shunned by society since their families they are now perpetual beggars surviving on handouts from well-wishers,” he said.

Mr Cosmas Bungu

He said city workers’ properties and homes were being expropriated for a song by the cash barons despite their patriotic and loyal endeavour to provide service to residents of Harare, inclusive of essential services such as water sewer and health services. Mr Bungu said it was mind boggling that the city fathers intended to pay town clerk Mr James Mushore thousands of dollars when he has not even worked for the city and his appointment is also a legal nullity.

He said suspended Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni should not be allowed to usurp the authority of central government oversight on the appointment of the town clerk, which is a senior position in terms of the Urban Council Act.

“The appointment of the town clerk of the City of Harare cannot be done without following the dictates of the law, which is the Urban Councils Act of which the legislature will obviously and in terms of the Constitution of Zimbabwe is currently aligning together with other Acts of Parliament,” he said.