Mat North leaders accuse parastatals of bussing employees from other provinces

MATABELELAND North political and traditional leadership have expressed concern over marginalisation of local people who they said are being sidelined from jobs at Government projects in the province.

Speaking during a tour of Gwayi-Shangani Dam by Minister of State for Matabeleland North Richard Moyo in Mabale on Thursday, traditional and political leaders accused some parastatals of bussing people from other provinces for jobs at the expense of locals.

The emotive issue took centre-stage as Zimbabwe National Water Authority assistant resident engineer, Brian Musarurwa, briefed the minister. Chief Dingane-Nelukoba of Mabale interjected and complained about exclusion of his subjects from jobs at the dam.

Chief Dingane-Nelukoba accused Zinwa, Zesa and the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority of employing people from other provinces leaving out locals.

"Most of the people employed here are not from Binga, Hwange or Lupane who are the locals around the dam. For example, you can't bring people from Tsholotsho to work here simply because you are from that place as if there are no people around," said Chief Dingane-Nelukoba.

He said many of his subjects have approached him complaining about being sidelined from jobs.

"I can tell you there are not more than five locals employed here at Zinwa and my appeal is for you to work on this. This is the reason why our people always insult us as useless leaders because we are not giving them jobs yet they see people from other provinces being employed.

"This is not unique to Zinwa, we also have Zimparks and yesterday 20 people were employed at Mtshibini Camp (Hwange National Park) and none of them are from Hwange district.

"Let's stop politicising jobs because such things are going to affect us. I'm not happy with what is happening and I'm not going to keep quiet about this," said the Chief.

Zinwa are the project implementers for the Gwayi-Shangani Dam whose construction is underway. Zanu-PF Central Committee member for Hwange Fati Mpofu said parastatals were negating President Mnangagwa's vision for an upper middle class economy by 2030 by not employing locals.

"When the President came to Hwange he assured the community that employment creation was one of his priorities and if this doesn't happen we are stabbing him in the back.

"As parastatals and project implementers please first check locally whether there are no skilled people for whatever positions that you wanted filled," said Mpofu.

He said Hwange district and the province as a whole has skilled people and artisans who are employable in different fields.

"Some artisans have come out of Hwange Colliery Company and other organisations and it's important that you Zinwa as project engineer balance labour politics," he added.

Another senior provincial Zanu-PF member Siphiwe Mafuwa said: "Our people have been complaining about unfair employment for a long time without help.

"The problem starts at board level because we are not represented as a province. Zesa, for example, has nine different boards but the composition automatically leaves the region out. It's important to strategically place ourselves."

Mafuwa challenged locals not to clamour for jobs only but to seek to be empowered through self help projects. Minister Moyo implored government departments to include locals when employing people.

"This project should benefit locals with employment. We have received concerns from leadership and please may we improve on that.

Last week we had our Provincial Coordinating Committee meeting and every leader complained about the same issue.

"As Government we will be happy if this is quickly rectified. We are not saying don't employ people from other provinces but let's be sensitive to locals, they are also unemployed," he said.