JOHANNESBURG – Zimbabwe’s civil servants have given the government until Wednesday to improve on its salary offer of $300 million for the sector or face a mass strike.
Apex Council secretary David Dzatsunga told a press conference on Monday that the amount was insufficient and that should Harare not substantially increase it a job boycott would follow, Pindula News reported.
His warning followed a meeting earlier in the day by the National Joint Negotiations Council. The organisation is due to hold another meeting over the issue on Tuesday.
Dzatsunga accused certain elements of hijacking labour issues relating to civil servants for selfish interests.
Meanwhile, after President Emmerson Mnangagwa expressed horror over a video showing a handcuffed man being beaten by police, reports are coming in of a man who died after he was brutally assaulted by soldiers over the weekend in a continued crackdown following nationwide protests earlier this month against steep fuel price increases.
The man, identified as Kudakwashe Rixon, 22, was reportedly seized by soldiers in uniform at Copacabana bus terminus in central Harare on Sunday as he returned home from work.
A police report at Harare Central Police station said Rixon had been dragged to a motor vehicle where he and several others were ordered to lie down in the vehicle on their stomachs before they were taken to a shrub land area.
After they were ordered out of the vehicle Rixon was allegedly beaten with knobkerries, sjamboks and rods, according to Pindula News. He later managed to reach his Mbare home in a lot of pain. His family rushed him to Harare Central hospital were he died on admission.