TWENTY-TWO drivers who took part in the just-ended national census in Manicaland have given the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency and the Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, 60 days to pay their outstanding allowances or face litigation.
Report by Obey Manyati, Staff Reporter
In a letter of final demand dated September 21, the drivers threatened to sue government officials in terms of the State Liabilities Act (Chapter 8:14).
The drivers claim they were promised $50 daily for driving census enumerators during the 10-day national census carried out in August.
The letter was copied to Biti, Population Census and Survey director Washington Tapuwa Mapeta, ZimStat director-general Dzinotizeyi Mutasa, ZimStat provincial head Wish Chipiro and the provincial paying officer Sekai Makaza.
Part of the letter served by the drivers’ lawyer Passmore Nyakureba reads: “Our clients were not paid as promised and eventually had to spent the whole period from the 17th to the 28th of August 2012 in the field doing your work whilst literally scavenging for food, accommodation and other social amenities.
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“. . . We thus are under instructions to advise you that we intend to institute legal action against you on behalf of our clients for payment of their allowances which are due and payable to them as agreed between you and them and as promised to them by Sekai Makaza, Wish Chipiro and Washington Tapuwa Mapeta at Mutare.”
ZimStat has, however, disowned them and said it owed them nothing.