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NewsDay

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‘Mugabe must fulfil promises to civil servants’

Politics
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF government should fulfil promises made at rallies, including transforming the lives of civil servants

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF government should fulfil promises made at rallies, including transforming the lives of civil servants, teachers organisations have said.

REPORT BY VENERANDA LANGA.

Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association chief executive officer Sifiso Ndlovu said Mugabe, who won the election resoundingly, should translate his words into deeds and ensure policy consistency in the education sector.

“We congratulate the winning party, but say it is now serious business and let us transform words into deeds and complete the issue of harmonising labour laws to ensure civil servants are afforded efficient collective bargaining systems to determine their conditions of service,” said Ndlovu in an interview yesterday.

“Looking forward, the President should be able to appoint a minister or ministerial committee to transform the lives of civil servants.” Ndlovu said the new government should re-align the Education Act to ensure it improved the quality of education as stipulated in the new Constitution.

“This time around we are saying investment on education should be a priority. There should be improvement of the education infrastructure and all policy inconsistencies should be removed.

For example, during the inclusive government there was policy paralysis where schools were being used as political grounds and this is not civilised and should stop. The issue to remove schools from politics was not supported by all actors in the GNU and so there was policy paralysis,” added Ndlovu.

Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe secretary-general Raymond Majongwe said his union hoped the new government would appoint a Labour minister who would ensure civil servants engaged in collective bargaining to avoid getting their rights trampled on.

“Mugabe during his campaigns said he was going to make the issue of civil servants an important one and so he must begin plans to make it a reality as promised. In his (Mugabe’s) Cabinet appointments, we expect to see a progressive Minister of Education who has foresight to respect unions and improve collective bargaining laws,” he said.