The government has failed to give workers living and sustainable wages, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said.
In his televised address to the workers on the occasion of International Workers’ Day, President Mnangagwa said owing to successive droughts, economic sanctions imposed on the country by the West and now the COVID-19 pandemic, his government has not been able to give workers living wages.
Industrial actions by civil servants prior the advent of COVID-19 had been the order of the day in Zimbabwe, with government workers pressing for better wages and conditions of service.
“The worker must be able to reproduce his or her life so he continues to work for humanity,” said President Mnangagwa.
“That means giving him a living wage one by which he can sustain himself and his family. This has to be the primary goal of any government including our own. True, we often come short of this key goal but the commitment to support and sustain the worker should and must always be there.”
He said since last year the government had continued to adjust workers’ earnings to make them living wages yet the goal of turning the inflation and the general cost of living had largely remained elusive.
“Elusive because of the successive droughts, which continue to visit us making our nation a net importer of food,” he said.
“Elusive because of punitive illegal sanctions which continue to beset us closing the possibilities for our economy and now even more elusive because of the global COVID-19 pandemic which has thrown us and the rest of the world off-rail into a severe recession.
Predictably, our economy will close the year in the negative territory, so too will be the economies of the world including the strongest ones.”
The President said Zimbabwe’s agriculture, which is the mainstay of our economy and the biggest employer of the country’s workforce must recover and be sustained to make the Southern African nation food-secure.
“The bottom line is that the worker must have food, shelter and must be able to afford health services while being able to send his or her children school,” emphasized President Mnangagwa.
“This, dear compatriots, must be the new thrust and ethic for us all at whatever sector we play in. Let me conclude again by thanking our workforce for producing and sweating for our nation. Without your dedication to work our economy can never recover. In the same vein, I want to thank you all for abiding by the very difficult measures put in place to safeguard our nation.”
He added: “Let me also heartily thank all our employers for standing by and supporting our entire workforce during the national lockdowns.”
This year’s Workers Day will be commemorated indoors as Zimbabweans remain under lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, which has so far infected 40 and claimed four lives while five people have since recovered from the deadly disease.
