After resolutions in a meeting between Gweru council workers and management brokered by provincial affairs minister Jason Machaya last Thursday were not implemented, employees returned to Townhouse where they are spending the day playing and dancing to the African drum, chanting anti-management songs.
The local authority workers were promised to be paid February 2015 salaries as well as this month remunerations by Thursday 14 May 2015, something that did not happen.
Read part of meeting resolutions: “Payment of February 2015 salaries and back pay for May 2014 for Grades 1 to 7 is to be paid by Thursday 14 of May 2015.” Workers Committee Secretary General Francis Muzorera has vowed that workers will not return to work as long as council negotiates in bad faith and lets them embark on a wild-goose chase.
Council Public Relations Manager Tapiwa Marerwa was not picking up calls on his mobile.
As ‘Rome burns’ with management and workers ‘fiddling’, ordinary residents have taken over council toilets, with their action double-pronged.
“We are not going to watch as our toilets turn into a haven for cholera. Secondly, we are charging R2 to everyone who so wishes to use the rooms of convenience,” Tapera Tembo told 263Chat Tuesday. He denied that him and other youths who were cleaning the toilets, were ‘members of a political party seeking to takeover council using the back door’ as alleged by some Gweru residents.
Council manages two public toilets in the central business district, at Kudzanayi bus terminus, and at the Old TM local bus terminus.
Meanwhile Environment Management Agency (EMA) Education and Publicity Officer (Midlands) Timothy Nyoka, has warned both council and residents to desist from burning up mounds of rubbish, which have become an eyesore in the city and the suburbs, saying those who did so risked starting up veld fires, with the toxic smoke also a danger to residents health.
“Council should improvise and come up with alternative ways to deal with the looming garbage and dirt in the streets. My organisation is also mandated by the Zimbabwean constitution to uphold the right of people to live in a clean and healthy environment, and we will not sit and watch while that human right is trampled upon,” he said.
