×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

MPs demand govt intervention at Hwange Colliery

News
HWANGE Central MP, Brian Tshuma yesterday quizzed Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi — in Nambya — during the question and answer session in the National Assembly, asking him to explain what the government will do to deal with the plight of Hwange Colliery employees, who have not been paid for five years.

HWANGE Central MP, Brian Tshuma yesterday quizzed Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi — in Nambya — during the question and answer session in the National Assembly, asking him to explain what the government will do to deal with the plight of Hwange Colliery employees, who have not been paid for five years.

By Veneranda Langa

The deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Mabel Chinomona had to ask Binga South MP Joel Gabbuza to translate the question to Ziyambi after Tshuma argued that Parliament, like the courts, needed to employ interpreters in the 16 languages mentioned in the Constitution.

“Government financially bailed out comatose companies like Zisco, and Premier Medical Aid Society, yet Hwange Colliery workers have been left to suffer for too long,” Tshuma said.

“What is government going to do to alleviate their suffering,” he asked?

Ziyambi had no response to the question except to promise that he would take the matter to Mines minister Winstone Chitando and President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines ,Temba Mliswa, whose team recently visited Hwange Colliery said further delays by the government to deal with the workers’ problem could worsen their plight.

“The situation is very serious and it now needs the intervention of President Emmerson Mnangagwa,” Mliswa said.

Msikavanhu MP, Prosper Mutseyami, who is also member of the mines committee, said the situation needed to be solved urgently, as MPs found women and children camped in a tent outside Hwange Colliery and demonstrating.