via Govt working to improve soldiers’ plight: Sekeramayi | The Herald February 3, 2016
Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
Government has assured members of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces that it is working to improve their conditions of service, which have deteriorated over the years partly due to ruinous economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by Western powers. Defence Minister Dr Sydney Sekeramayi said poor conditions of service for members of the ZDF compromised their dignity in the eyes of the public, hence the need to ensure they were improved.
He said this while addressing students of the Joint Command and Staff Course Number 29 on the country’s defence policy at the Zimbabwe Staff College.
Minister Sekeramayi said the Zimbabwe Defence Policy also focused on the enhancement of conditions of service including provision of decent accommodation, better salaries and transport facilities.
“I know that for now there are challenges. These facilities are not adequate but you can be sure that the Government is doing everything in its power to make sure that we have decent accommodation because members of the ZDF are now family members, mothers and fathers. They have got children,” he said.
“It is humiliating sometimes to find men and women in combat waiting for a lift, (or riding) at the back of a truck and so forth. It is an experience that is not good. It is an experience which in fact reduces the stature of the uniformed forces in the eyes of the general public.”
He said soldiers had been seen pushing and shoving, together with civilians, to board public transport.
“We are therefore working hard so that this temporary setback that we have gone through is overcome and it becomes a thing of the past. It becomes an unfortunate history in the development of ZDF. But I want to assure you that we will be doing as Government everything in our power to improve the conditions of service,” he said.
Minister Sekeramayi paid tribute to Zimbabweans whom he said, unlike other countries, have resisted the machinations by the United States and the European Union to revolt against their Government because of hardships spawned by illegal sanctions.
“It is common knowledge that a hungry man is an angry man and it goes without saying that in order for the country to be stable, there is need for a vibrant economy,” said Minister Sekeramayi.
He said Government had unveiled an economic blueprint, Zim-Asset to achieve sustainable development and social equity through indigenisation, empowerment and employment creation propelled by judicious exploitation of the country’s abundant human and natural resources.
COMMENTS
Where has Defence Minister Dr Sydney Sekeramayi been since 1980? Where in fact have the soldiers he was speaking to been since that year? Surely, all of them must know that their present “indignities” and troubles have been brought on themselves by their many wicked acts and omissions since 1980.
Their present suffering is not the result of what ZANU PF always likes to call “Western economic sanctions”. These sufferings have all come from within Zimbabwe as rightful punishment for their past and present trashing of the Zimbabwe economy and its people.
It looks more than likely that the decrepit Mugabe himself and Dr. Sydney Sekeramayi are so past their sell by dates that the devil will take them to their eternal damnation and so escape the indignity of answering for all their killings here on earth. But their willing minions in the army and police, and indeed other branches of the ZANU PF Government, are young enough to get their rightful punishment right there in Zimbabwe.
God speed that day…
Blaming the sanctions for their poor performance as a govt, and trying to convince people that things will improve. If you have failed to improve from 1980, before so called “sanction” what will make you improve today? Have the “sanctions” since been removed? If not, what new things are you going to do now which you have not been able to do since the “sanctions” were placed? And why have you not been doing it since then, only to wait to do these things when the country has deteriorated this much?
Ndonga. I couldn’t have put it any better
“Government has assured members of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces that it is working to improve their conditions of service, which have deteriorated over the years partly due to ruinous economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by Western powers. Defence Minister Dr Sydney Sekeramayi said poor conditions of service for members of the ZDF compromised their dignity in the eyes of the public, hence the need to ensure they were improved.”
Self-denial and trying to hide behind the sanctions mantra will not save purpose, because THE UGLY TRUTH IS KNOWN BY CLOWNS AS WELL.
Power base of Mugabe is the military guys. However he has been short sighted that when he allows investors to leave the country and allowed economy to just die, he was also denying the same military men means of survival. The military live on taxes and customs duties collected by ZIMRA. Now the ZIMRA is peri annually failing to meet revenue targets simple because the ZANU PF government and some military men owns the means of production and are not paying taxes and customs duty or even the traffic fines, where will money come to pay the civil services. Economy performs like the eco system or eco chain. I remember while at school there was a topic in biology called inter dependence of living organism. Including snakes and frogs and human beings. Kill the snakes you will see frogs and rates all over even eating your own harvest that you will not reap. Frogs will be so much that you will hardly find a place to step. This simple ideology is what Mugabe forget when he chased the investors. The military men as last on the block are beginning to feel the heat. They will come to hunt him and he will have no where to hide. Very soon there will not be even money for them to service the vehicles and food for those protecting him while him self is so full with ill-gotten wealth.