MUTARE- The Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ), a research arm of the Zimbabwe for Congress of Trades Union (ZCTU) has called on government to embrace policies that stimulate employment creation.
LEDRIZ said private sector growth should also be complemented by proper management of public institutions, local authorities and parastatal which can also create employment.
Naome Chakanya, economist researcher with LEDRIZ made these remarks on the sidelines of a ZCTU Regional Annual Sector Meeting on Decent Work Themes, with a special focus on social protection.
She said government can stimulate growth across agro value chain in processing and labour intensive sectors, to create networks which can provide a link from the rural to urban markets.
“When we talk about jobs we do not what to hear of only the jobs created but to also check the quality of the jobs created- we are not just saying jobs but decent labour opportunities should be created.
“Let’s look at the resources we have, we are an agro based economy with so much potential to do value addition in that sector. It can be in any sector whether its agro, in tobacco instead of selling off raw we can invest in processing of that tobacco,” she said.
Chakanya said farmers should adopt concept of value addition of horticultural products as an important factor of growth and development of the horticultural sector.
Success of the National Development Strategy, covering 2021- 2025 depends on, “whether we have strong, accountable, transparent, and inclusive institutions to drive its implementation as well as a sustainable financing model relying largely on domestic resources to finance it,” she said.
ZCTU national organizer Michael Kandukutu sad the platform of the capacitating workers towards decent work in Zimbabwe informal and informal sector
He said the discussions also centered on the enjoyment of workers right as provide by the Constitution, provision of space for workers in the informal sectors to share their plight.
“Employers have chosen to arbitrary not respect workers’ rights we see this by the introduction of flexible working hours, which are supposed to be discussed at a workers council.
“We see tendency by the employers in the disguise of Covid rules of decongesting the work place coming up with some crazy inventions.
“They ask workers to be at home when they are not paying salaries for the time when they are at home,” said Kandukutu.
The Zimbabwe National Statistics (ZIMSTAT) report Poverty and Social Impacts of COVID-19: Results from the Rapid PICES Phone Survey Data, paints an ominous picture for informal traders in urban areas as hardest hit sector.
The informal workforce comprising 85% of the total workforce, is struggling to recover from lockdown measures after local authorities cleared informal traders from the streets.
Informal and family businesses were hit hard with direct shocks in urban areas impacting on disposable income. As workers’ wages were affected, family businesses got hit hardest.
Zimbabwe faces an economic crisis with inflation soaring at 659% as of September 2020, the World Bank also expects the economy to shrink between 5-10% in 2020, and the fiscal deficit to widen to 5.6% of GDP.
World Bank says this crisis is emanating from, ‘policy missteps—lack of effective fiscal-monetary-forex policy coordination and significant quasi-fiscal activities by the Central Bank—undermined the de-dollarization effort and resulted in a rapid depreciation of the local currency and high inflationary pressures.
