ZCTU rival presidents debate on Question Time: Part 1

Following last year's split in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), SW Radio Africa journalist Lance Guma hosts Part 1 of a debate between rival Presidents Lovemore Matombo and George Nkiwane. Both explain why the ZCTU split and what it would take to unite the two factions. They also answered questions from SW Radio Africa listeners.

Interview broadcast 28 March 2012

Lance Guma: Good evening Zimbabwe and thank you for joining me on Question Time, my name is Lance Guma. Following last year's split of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions we have decided to host a discussion between the two rival factions of the ZCTU. Joining me tonight are rival presidents â€" Lovemore Matombo and George Nkiwane.

We asked SW Radio Africa listeners to send in their questions in advance using Face Book, Twitter, Skype, email and text messages and I'll be posing some of these questions during the discussion. Let me start with Mr Nkiwane â€" how did the ZCTU find itself in this mess?

George Nkiwane: Ah you know it's a long story but I think I need to be very brief as to how it all happened. We held our Congress in August last year which was disputed by some of our colleagues who are now siding with Mr Matombo and the bone of contention was that some of our unions, four in particular, were not verified according to them.

The verification exercise did not come out clearly, it had gaps that they thought should have been ratified before we went for that Congress. And when we went for that Congress they made an urgent chamber application to try and stop the Congress from proceeding but the High Court then saw that, decided that no, the matter was not urgent and then the Congress should proceed and we did hold that Congress which led to my election as the president of the ZCTU.

Guma: Okay let me quickly go to Mr Matombo â€" would you dispute that narration of events? Is that what happened?

Lovemore Matombo: Well he made it quite brief but I think it's quite a long story which started around 2004 when I was dismissed from employment for having attended a conference of the Organisation of African Trade Unions in Khartoum in Sudan where some of my colleagues started to play around with some form of innuendos that I was not fit at the time to lead the ZCTU because my employers had dismissed me.

And during that process, fortunately what happened was that some of those undermining my position as ZCTU president caught up in the fiasco and we were grouped together and during that time it appeared we worked together up until the 2006 Conference and during the 2006 Conference, the same colleagues went behind my back, behind the back of the General Council to go and seek the nullification of my position to the Congress.

So what they did was they used the lawyers to sound an opinion, whose opinion they were going to use, that because Matombo is longer subscribing to a union because he's dismissed, can he still be allowed to contest the position of president in 2006? And the lawyer in their wisdom clearly stated that Matombo had every right to stand as president because he was elected by Congress and on that part, my colleagues felt defeated.

As we went by, as time went by and as we approached this other Congress last year, they then started to craft what they termed as a constitution which then was supposed to limit my term and yet this constitution was supposed to be discussed in 2006 and the question of the limits in terms of the office bearers was never an issue at all.

So well, it went on like that up until this last time when in fact every, it should be understood that every organisation has a constitution and every constitution has got some norms and standards and what is required by the ZCTU constitution is that for every one thousand subscribing members, you need one delegate and as we prepared to go for Congress, three days before Congress when all these delegates were then announced, it was discovered that 52% of those people who went to attend the Congress were not legitimate delegates and that became the bone of contention.

It became the bone of contention because ZCTU has stood for democracy, ZCTU has stood for, to uphold the principles of democracy; we have said time and again that we shall never ever tolerate any electoral process, whether national or in civic organizations, we will not tolerate electoral fraud. So basically this is the whole process it's about electoral fraud and nothing more, nothing less.

Guma: Okay before we get to questions that we've got from listeners, I'll just ask Mr Nkiwane to respond to those allegations from Mr Matombo. What's your take Mr Nkiwane?

Nkiwane: I did not want to dwell into history because he's correct that in 2004 he was dismissed from his employment and we stood by him. The reason why we referred the matter to our lawyers when we went for the 2006 Congress was that we did want to be found wanting when it comes to his nomination because some of the delegates were questioning his locus standi as to whether he was able to lead the ZCTU when he was dismissed from his employment.

So we did seek of course the advice from the lawyers and for us it was a victory because the lawyers came up with an advice that suited our ideas because we wanted to support him and if he had not got our support at that particular Congress in 2006, he was not going to be elected.

It's true in 2004 when he was dismissed, that is when we suggested and proposed to the General Council that we pay him a salary equivalent to what he was supposed to be getting from his employment and every year when they bargain I mean the industry that he was working for, whenever they bargain, we would match that salary, so that we did not want to lose him at that particular time because we thought we could army the system that had dismissed him from employment by allowing him to go.

So we supported him and said let's pay him a salary so that he remains our president. Never at one time did we as a group or his subordinates then decided or wanted to work against him. We were supporting him through and through, that is why he was elected in 2006.

Guma: Okay, now Mr Matombo, we have a question from Guruve, this question comes from Edwin who says it is reported that Mr Matombo's faction has the support of eight ZCTU affiliates out of 33, so his question is you do not seem to have the majority support there, so why do you not rally behind your colleagues?

Matombo: Ah well of course that has been the propaganda that has been produced by some of our colleagues but let me state quite clearly that it's not about the number of unions, it is about the volume and that is what is critical. I'll take an example of the railway union; the new union has got four, I mean the railway company has got four unions â€" for the artisans, for the locomotive drivers, for the general workers and so on and so forth.

And what this means is that in the union I belong, we could have one union for engineers, a union for technicians and a union for the post of managers and union for the general workers and in fact that is a colonial set up. What we said after independence was that we need one union in one industry so when you look into, if you give an example of railways, you can now see the type of unions you are talking about.

And some of the unions have got 300 members, some have got 400 members, 600 members and so on and so forth. So you don't examine the number of unions but rather go for the volume, the number, the membership itself. So the membership that we have is even larger than this other union; it's not about the number of unions in the centre but rather the number of members in that centre.

Guma: I have a question for you Mr Nkiwane and it's based on allegations that have been made by Raymond Majongwe who is the Secretary General in Mr Matombo's faction â€" now he says Mr Chibebe, the out-going Secretary General wanted to destabilize the union and he accused him of trying to be the godfather of trade unionism in Zimbabwe. And several questions from listeners also on this â€" why is it these problems came to a head when Mr Chibebe left? That's a question for Mr Nkiwane.

Nkiwane: I don't think this problem came about when Mr Chibebe had left. We have had problems and we've dealt with them. From 2001 we have had problems, 2006, after each and every Congress we have had problems but I think at that particular time then we managed to resolve the problems.

It is only this past Congress that we have had a problem that went out of hand and some people, of course to us, we term them individuals, decided after having noted that they will never, they were not going to be elected, they are not going to make it to be elected into any position, decided to pull out at the last minute because all these allegations that are being leveled against ZCTU right now by this faction, they should have been discussed by the General Council then which was chaired by Mr Matombo and we dealt with all the matters that occurred before the General Council then and it's not true that these problems came about when Mr Chibebe had left the organisation.

Guma: Okay on a separate matter would you agree with that, just coming to you Mr Matombo, would you agree or disagree that problems came to a head when Mr Chibebe left? Your former colleague?

Matombo: No, no, no. No, no, no. In fact it's because you are discussing and obviously each party wanted to score points like what Mr Nkiwane is saying that they are the ones who supported me in 2006 and so on and so forth â€" that's a question of scoring points.

They had their candidate which they wanted to back and it was through the voice of the delegates at Congress who clearly stated that the moment Matombo is dismissed from the position of president because he was dismissed from employment, then the rest of the factor, the trade union factor would suffer the same consequences and that's how we came to that point.

And to suggest that I was not going to win, had they not supported me, that is wrong, in fact that is very untrue. Mr Nkiwane is quite aware, that when they went to Congress with him, the so-called CWUZ Union (Commercial Workers Union of Zimbabwe), CWUZ Union got the highest delegates and don't have even a single membership. They don't have the membership. The CWUZ they are talking about does not have the membership, there's no register there is literally nothing and yet they went to Congress with the highest number of delegates. What is that supposed to mean?

Guma: Isn't the problem though that it is created by this whole situation and it's a question that a lot of our listeners are directing at you Mr Matombo, being the incumbent at the time, the perception is that you are hanging onto power and you do not want to let go. How would you answer that?

Matombo: Precisely, in fact that was, I would want to believe and I did admit that my colleagues were quite clever enough because what they had to do was to change the constitution without the Congress and then use the two-term mantra because it could resonate and that if that is used obviously we can give a very bad face in front of Matombo. That they tried to do that was quite clear.

But those who are quite clear about what has been happening in our Union would know precisely that we were dealing with certain issues which some of us are afraid to talk about, even up to now if the truth be said, at some stage and we want to unveil as to what has been happening. I think certain faces will be even dirtier than Matombo's face.

So really yes, people can say that but to me and my colleagues, they even know when I am stepping down. In fact when we went to Congress, they asked me to stand up until the next term and I said if the condition is about the next term and I said if the condition is about the next term, then I won't stand. And then we agreed that I will be there for a time and I will see, after all, I can do certain things, other things, I've got certain things that I can do in my life so really all I am doing is for the benefit of the ZCTU and for the benefit of the working people of this country.

Guma: Okay we'll give Mr Nkiwane a chance to respond before we get to the next, probably final question. Would you like to react to that Mr Nkiwane?

Nkiwane: Yes Lance my brother. I think what I'm talking about is not about scoring points, it's about fact. The constitutional amendment that he is referring to, records are there for all to see, all those that are interested can come to the ZCTU offices, we'll give them the records about the constitution's amendment that was done in 1995 and then the Congress that was held in Masvingo in 2001 is the one that questioned the leadership that was there then as to why the constitutional amendments that were done in 1995 in Mutare were not incorporated in the constitution.

Those are the amendments which also included the two-term period for any presidium position. So when that Congress directed the new leadership that came into office then, that was in 2001 and the leadership was led by Mr Matombo and Mr Chibebe became the Secretary General, they were directed by that Congress to effect the constitutional amendments that were done in 1995 in Mutare.

And they were done and the 2006 Congress, amended that constitution and ratified those amendments and adopted the amendments. And it became no issue when we met as General Council as to when then was the effective date of those amendments.

We said as General Council, the constitution was for us and it was ours, we can waver that and look at the effective date and we agreed in the General Council that was chaired by Mr Matombo that the effective date of that amendment was 2006 and what I'm talking about baba is there for anyone who would want to verify the records and that is what I'm talking about. It's not about scoring points, but it's about facts as to what happened.

Guma: Okay there's a question on issues of…

Matombo: Okay I think I just want to react to that aspect…

Guma: Okay

Matombo: …because we don't want our listeners to miss some of these facts he's trying to put across. We all have the 2006 resolutions, they are available and we have said if my colleague is prepared to discuss this issue, we put across to the journalists, everybody so that we start to discuss the issue, we are discussing it from the air, let's be practical, we discuss that particular issue.

In fact on the 20th of July last year, Mr Moyo and Mr Chibebe and myself went to the then Secretary General of the ZCTU, Morgan Tsvangirai and we met him at his office and we asked him whether there was any debate of a two-term by the 1995 Conference. He laughed at us and said well if indeed there was such a thing, it could not be hidden from anybody.

That was supposed to be a public, it was supposed to be public knowledge really because ZCTU is a public organisation. And we went further to ask some of the delegates who attended the 1995 Conference and they said no such issue was discussed.

And really perhaps what might be required here is for people to come together and say yes this is what happened, where are the documents, where is the documentation, who has got the documentation, we all have the documents, the documents are available so that's really not, it's not a problem really.

Guma: But is there anything wrong in having a two-term limit? That seems to be pretty much the standard world over in politics, people generally view that as a good requirement to have. Would you have any objection to that Mr Matombo?

Matombo: Objection to?

Guma: A two-term limit?

Matombo: No I wouldn't object to that definitely. In fact this is what we stated even at our latest Congress that was held on the 16th and 17th of December last year. We wouldn't, in fact that's the way to go. That's the way. We know we have not had that so far in many unions around the world, I just want to correct you. In the union level that has not been an issue really but in the context of Zimbabwe I think that is the way to go. We need to practise what we preach, that's very important to us, yes.

Guma: Well that brings us to the end of Part One of this programme where we are hosting a debate between the two rival presidents of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Lovemore Matombo and Mr George Nkiwane. Join us next week for Part Two as we continue this debate between the two gentlemen.

To listen to the programme: >>>> HERE