The main labour body in Zimbabwe is planning mass action against the government over chronic cash shortages gripping the country, a top labour official said on Thursday.
Over the past few months banks have been unable to supply people with cash, workers have been unable to cash their pay cheques and people have resorted to sleeping in bank queues.
Lovemore Matombo, the president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) said the labour body was planning mass action to protest the ”inactivity of the government” in overcoming the shortages.
He could not give any firm dates for the action, saying it awaited the approval of the labour body’s general council. But, he was confident the mass action would be approved.
”We want to force them (the government) to act on the crisis,” Matombo said. The private Daily News newspaper quoted unnamed ZCTU sources as saying the protest action would kick off on September 29 and would include a week-long strike and protest marches by workers.
The government has said it was printing new money and has promised to pump billions of Zimbabwe dollars into the economy on a daily basis after September 26.
Matombo said his union, which represents around 250 000 workers, was unconvinced and wanted direct assurances. ”We cannot go by what we read and hear in the print and electronic media,” he said.
The Zimbabwean government blames the cash shortages on people hoarding the country’s highest denomination Z$500 note. It plans to withdraw the old notes from circulation at the end of September and replace them with new Z$500 and Z$1 000 bills.
Last month, it outlawed companies and individuals from holding more than Z$5-million in a bid to release cash into the market. But, there has been no let-up to the crisis.
Late on Wednesday, the state Ziana news agency interviewed a 48-year-old woman from rural Zimbabwe, who had spent a week queuing outside a bank in central Harare in an attempt to draw her pension. — Sapa-AFP