WAR veterans working for Harare City Council’s attempt to gain favours and survive the retrenchment exercise underway hit a brick wall after a full council meeting resolved last week that they would be treated like any other workers affected.
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The former freedom fighters wanted their age of retirement to be 70 years instead of the 60 that have seen others being retrenched. They also wanted their children to be employed to replace them when they retire.
Council human resources committee chairperson Wellington Chikombo said the war veterans had taken the issue to Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo who said council should deal with the matter.
“War veterans said they are supposed to be treated as a special class in society. They are a special group of people and we should treat them as such.
“They wanted to be retired at the age of 70 instead of 60, they also wanted their children to replace them, they also needed to be retired at a higher grade,” Chikombo said.
“We said they are a special group, but should be treated like all the other special groups hence we recommended as a committee that their demands we could not meet. The full council adopted the recommendations.”
Council is set to borrow close to $15 million to finance the retrenchment of more than 1 000 workers including senior managers who were affected by the retrenchment exercise.
