Thursday 18 / April / 2024
Harare: Zimbabwean police used teargas, water cannon and batons on Wednesday to disperse opposition youths who were demonstrating in the capital against alleged brutality by security agents.
More than 200 youths from the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had taken to the streets two days before a planned march by all opposition parties to try to force President Robert Mugabe to implement electoral reforms ahead of the 2018 vote.
Police intercepted them and fired teargas at the protesters who were planning to hand a petition at the offices of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is in charge of the police.
Some protesters threw back the teargas canisters, as well as rocks, towards the police, who chased them with water cannon and fired more teargas outside the MDC headquarters, forcing pedestrians and people standing in nearby bank queues to flee.
The youths had marched through the streets of the capital denouncing the police for beating up protesters and called on Mugabe to step down, accusing him of running a dictatorship.
"We have been seeing a deliberate attempt by the police to intimidate, harass and silence the people of Zimbabwe," MDC Youth Assembly secretary general Lovemore Chinoputsa told Reuters TV during the march.
Chinoputsa said police had refused to sanction the march, saying that it would degenerate into violence.
Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said she could not immediately comment. The police routinely deny charges of brutality and instead accuse the opposition of using "hooligans" during protests to attack officers.
The southern African nation has a history of violence against opponents of Mugabe, where police have in the last few months crushed demonstrations against high unemployment, acute cash shortages and corruption.
A trauma clinic in Harare last month recorded a list of cases of people who had been caught up in a police crack down during anti-government protests.
The MDC's leader Morgan Tsvangirai and former vice president Joice Mujuru are expected to lead Friday's march.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's government plans to abolish about half the jobs in the agriculture department, a government official said on Wednesday, as Mugabe's administration struggles to pay public service wages.
The southern African nation is facing a biting shortage of cash, its worst since 2009 when it dumped its hyperinflation-wrecked currency in favour of the US dollar.
Zimbabwe, which spends 82 per cent of its national annual budget on wages, said on Monday it would no longer hire new public workers as it struggles to pay soldiers, police, teachers and other employees.
The deputy minister in the agriculture department, Paddy Zhanda, said his office was seeking to prevent the shedding of about 8,000 jobs decision by the Public Service Commission (PSC), which hires state workers.
Zhanda said the department had offered an alternative plan that would cut wages but save jobs, because dismissing staff could impact agriculture at a time the sector is struggling to recover from the worst drought in a quarter century.
"For example, workers can work fewer days and we could retire non critical staff above the age of 60 years as well as doing away with posts that are vacant," Zhanda told Reuters.
Cecelia Alexander, chairperson of the main union for state workers Apex Council, could not be reached for comment.
The state-run Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday that the PSC had notified the agriculture ministry on July 29 that 8,252 posts out of 19,235 had been scrapped with immediate effect.
In March last year, Harare carried out an audit of its government workforce but has not made the results public. An audit by private consultants carried out in 2010 showed that up to 70,000 "ghost workers" were on the payroll.
There are more than 300,000 employees in government, according to the Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency, a number which does not include the army, air force, police and prisons.
Delays in salaries as well as the cash squeeze that has seen long queues at banks, are some of the reasons that have in the last three months fuelled anti-government protests that have ended in clashes with police.
