Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
GWERU City Council workers yesterday staged a sit in protest over outstanding salaries. The cash-strapped council has not paid its workers for the past three months.
Secretary of the Gweru Chapter of the Zimbabwe Council Workers Union, Kudakwashe Munengiwa, chose to be diplomatic when Chronicle sought comment.

He said some council workers were executing their duties on humanitarian grounds since they were hungry.

“We can’t say it was an industrial action as such but we had a colleague who fainted because of hunger. As you know we’ve gone for more than three months without getting paid and naturally in such a scenario hunger creeps in.

“So after one of the workers fainted some didn’t attend to their duties because they felt they could meet the same fate,” he said.

Munengiwa could not rule out a fully fledged industrial action if the situation continues unabated.

When Chronicle visited the council works yard near Kudzanai Bus Terminus yesterday around 11AM, workers were seated.

Some workers representatives were locked in the office of the works yard superintendant, engaged in an emotionally charged meeting.

The workers representatives and their boss put up a united front as they told the news crew, “There’s no news here. If you want news, you know where to go, at the town house.”

This was despite the fact that workers wanted the news crew to cover their sit-in demo.

Efforts to get a comment from City Mayor Councillor Hamutendi Kombayi or town clerk Daniel Matawu were fruitless as their mobile phones were not being answered.

Council has been struggling to collect revenue, a situation which has seriously compromised service delivery in the city.

Chairman of council finance committee, Clr Albert Chirau, recently announced that council is owed $36 million by ratepayers, a situation which has left the local authority in a quandary.

Clr Chirau said council has established a debt collection unit to recover money owed to it by ratepayers so that it can sustain its operations.

Council employs about 1,300 workers and needs at least $1,5 million per month to sustain its operations.

However, its revenue collection at the moment stands at just under $500, 000, a situation which has seen the local authority failing to meet its obligations on time.

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