Sacked GMB workers baffled by Made's silence - plead to President

HARARE - Grain Marketing Board (GMB) workers who were sacked by the parastatal late last year, without receiving any terminal benefits and their outstanding salaries, have lambasted the Minister of Agriculture's silence on their plight.

The workers, who consider their dismissals to have been unfair, said that they could not understand why their minister Joseph Made has been so tight-lipped on the issue, and said that they were now pleading with President Robert Mugabe, to intervene in what they termed 'inconsiderate and brazen disregard of rights as workers' by the GMB.

'We are witnessing other ministers, such as Saviour Kasukuwere standing with their people, but what perturbs us beyond comprehension is why our own minister Made is so quiet, and yet the GMB is treating us with such disregards, as if we are the wrong-doers, and yet it's the parastatal that still owes us outstanding salaries of over a year, and has not paid us our terminal benefits.

'All we are asking for is what is rightfully due to us, nothing more,' bemoaned a representative of the sacked workers.

The former GMB workers said that they had served the parastatal and country with unquestioning diligence, loyalty and patriotism, and yet were shocked when they were served with letters of termination of employment notices on 5 August 2015, without any plausible reason from the company.

'We are totally opposed to the way we were fired from our jobs by the GMB, as they applied the old Labour Act, and so we consider our sacking as unlawful, and thus calling upon minister Made and His Excellency President Mugabe to intervene in this matter.'

The former workers said that they were finding life very difficult without any terminal benefits - as GMB was not remitting any monies the company had been deducting from the employees' salaries for pension, social security, and funeral assurance to the relevant authorities.

'Why do we have to suffer because of GMB's own incompetence and dishonesty? It is not us who failed to contribute to the pension and social security funds, but GMB itself, so who is the wrongdoer here?

'As if that was not bad enough, we had not been receiving our salaries in full for months, and others for over a year.

'Why does it appear as if we are been punished, and yet we served the parastatal and this country well by ensuring food security, but now we are being treated as if we were a plague,' the representative lamented.

The over 1000 employees affected by these dismissals countrywide, now face an uncertain future and find life unbearably painful, as they confront numerous challenges.

'The primary challenge we now face is hunger, as a result of the lack of proper salaries for nearly two years and any terminal benefits from our former employer.

'We can not afford to purchase anything, let alone food for ourselves and our families.

'Ironically, we spent years of dedication, commitment and loyalty working at the GMB insuring that the country was food secure, yet we - the sacked workers - now find ourselves food insecure, as we are virtually on the brink of starvation.'

The dismissed GMB workers cited accommodation as another of their challenges, as their former employer has instructed them to vacate company houses.

'The GMB says we are no longer eligible to dwell there since we are no longer in their employment.

'Our employer has said that if we want to continue residing in the houses, we should pay commercial rates.

'However, due to the same reason of the lack of financial capacity as a result of lack of proper salaries and terminal benefits, we are unable to either pay commercial rates for our current dwellings nor rent for accommodation elsewhere,' said the dismissed worker representative.

They called upon minister Made and President Mugabe to also consider the former workers' children who face a very bleak future as a result of the treatment they received from the GMB, as they can no longer afford to pay school fees for them.

'This is so worrisome, as our children are not only our future, but are also the country's future, and a country with an uneducated populace is a doomed country of thieves, prostitutes and drug addicts.

'This will be going against the President's own principles for an educated and, therefore, prosperous nation - which has seen Zimbabwe with the highest literacy rate on the African continent, and producing some of the finest minds in the world,' they said.

The sacked workers said that they had tried to engage their former employer, having met several times, but to no avail, as GMB refuses to commit to anything, thereby, leaving them with what they described as 'a sense of uncertainty and insecurity'.

The dismissed workers said that they hoped that the minister and the President would seriously consider their plight and intervene.