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Victor Maphosa, Harare Bureau

Zesa is still defying an instruction from President Mnangagwa five months ago to reinstate eight workers fired for exposing corruption at the utility.

The President made the call at the launch of the Tripartite Negotiating Forum Act on June 5.

Our Harare Bureau has learnt that instead of reinstating the workers, Zesa issued them with new appointment letters last month which alters their conditions of service and benefits, in particular the letters require them to serve a probationary period and does not reinstate their pension rights or deal with claims for back pay while they were fired.

The workers are Florence Taruvinga, Gibson Mushunje, Admire Mudzonga, Cadim Mzilikazi, Given Dingwiza, Tariro Shumba, Stephen Moyoweshumba and Joanes Chingoriwo.

Efforts to get a comment from Zesa were fruitless as those able to comment on the matter were not reachable.

However, according to documents, Zesa appointed the workers on new contracts without their terminal benefits.

“Reference is made to the correspondence from the group chief executive officer to my office dated 1st of October 2019 where an instruction was issued to appoint you to your previous positions with no change to status effective 1st of October,” read one of the letter of appointment from the power utility management.

 However, the eight are concerned that the implication of the new appointments is opposed to the orders for reinstatement. They argue that the new appointments are not backed by any law, do not deal with loss of their back pay and their loss of an entire lifetime of pension rights.

According to the documents, the eight were supposed to sign their employment contract by October 11.

Energy Sector Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe acting president Mr David Malunga called on Zesa to reinstate the workers as ordered by the Head of State.

He said the employees should be commended for exposing corruption and should therefore not be prejudiced.

“Zesa should just reinstate our members, they have responsibilities and need to take care of themselves. Why is the organisation defying the President’s order. These workers should be commended for exposing corruption, but it seems Zesa is punishing them for exposing the rot.”

One of the eight, who spoke to our Harare Bureau said Zesa should just do the right thing and comply with the President’s order. “We are surprised that Zesa is defying the order from the Head of State. We are wondering and questioning ourselves on whose authority is Zesa defying the order and who are they serving.

“I served in the organisation for more than 30 years and now I am supposed to undergo probation. This is very unfair and I cannot take it. What will happen to my benefits that have accrued all these years. We are merely victimised for our bold stance which we took to expose corruption.”

Another dismissed employee revealed that the management said they could not reinstate them because the responsible Ministry has directed them not to.

He alleged that this was revealed to them in a meeting held in Harare on October 3.

“We had a meeting on October 3 where the management told us that there is a letter from Minister Fortune Chasi which directed them to appoint us instead of reinstating us. We demanded to see this and also have a copy of the letter but the management refused.

“We then visited the Minister who vehemently denied the allegations and wrote a letter to Zesa addressing the allegations,” he said.

Most of the whistleblowers have served the organisation for more than 20 years and they are all going to be deployed out of Harare.

They were suspended on March 7 2018 without pay after being charged with unlawful job action, breaching of the Official Secrets Act and insubordination.