MIDRAND - ZIMBABWE'S inclusive government has failed to spruce its battered image due to existing draconian laws that keep enslaving its citizens, ZCTU president, Lovemore Matombo told CAJ News on Tuesday. (Pictured: Lovemore Matombo)In an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the on-going Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)’s 10th National Congress at Gallagher Estate, Midrand, Johannesburg, Matombo said draconian pieces of legislations were doing more harm to the inclusive government efforts aimed at enticing regional and international investors. “As long as we still have such draconian laws as Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), our country’s image will remain battered and soiled.
“MDC’s participation in this inclusive government is only to gloss the existence of ZANU (PF) and its leadership- which is a major tragedy to both socio-economic and political development of Zimbabwe,” said Matombo. He said the bad laws that were enacted during the dark years of between 2000 and 2003 were counter-productive and scaring away potential international investors.
Matombo argued that companies in Zimbabwe were still closing down on the basis that there was no finance to boost the economic backbone of the country’s agro-based businesses, manufacturing, finance and banking, health, education and tourism sectors. “To make matters worse, the only public work-force to talk about in Zimbabwe is a mere 10 percent hence the continuous poor service delivery service.
“The issue of sanctions that the Zanu (PF) is repeatedly talking about is non-existent. We don’t really know the type of sanctions Zanu (PF) politicians always talk about. “To us, it is not sanctions, but destroyed agro-based sector, which normally stimulates manufacturing industry as well as the growth of the economy,” Matombo said. The ZCTU boss said targeted sanctions on Zanu (PF) individuals did not have anything to do with the daily activities of the private sectors and individual business insisting that bad enacted laws were scaring investors.
“The issue of sanctions is just cheap propaganda. We know quite well that the authoritarian system is to protect its interests and nothing more. “Wherever one goes around the world where there is authoritarian system, the system is just the same, and it has to be brought on its knees,” said Matombo. He demanded that such draconian laws as AIPPA and POSA should be removed with immediate effect if Zimbabwe had to attract full international support.
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