Youths threaten protests

Politics
MDC-T youths in Bulawayo last week expressed their readiness to take to the streets over job cuts and company closures saying they are only awaiting a go-ahead from party leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

MDC-T youths in Bulawayo last week expressed their readiness to take to the streets over job cuts and company closures saying they are only awaiting a go-ahead from party leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

NQOBANI NDLOVU STAFF REPORTER

The MDC-T youths said the economic situation was so dire that street protests were required to force President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu PF party to act. Tsvangirai recently urged youths to demonstrate to press the government to address the economic situation characterised by company closures.

“The situation in Zimbabwe resembles a time bomb awaiting detonation. As the MDC-T youth assembly, we are saying we are ready to demonstrate to free ourselves from poverty and suffering,” MDC-T Bulawayo youth assembly information secretary Charles Moyo said at a press conference.

“If our president Tsvangirai says demonstrate, we will go to the streets. We only await his go-ahead as we are more than ready to do so.”

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions said over 100 companies had closed shop and over 10 000 workers sent into joblessness since the 2013 elections. The government has promised to create over two million jobs under its ZimAsset economic blueprint, but MDC-T Bulawayo youth assembly provincial assembly secretary Kunashe Muchemwa said Zanu PF “must go back to the drawing board and think of new and better blueprints which will create employment”.

“What we need is to engage with other stakeholders to take action. We want to put pressure on this government to deliver,” Muchemwa said.

“We are ready to put pressure on this government because we need a solution to the economic crises. We are sick and tired of ZimAsset which remains a song and mere propaganda which can be equated to the Afrikaans language medium decree in South Africa in June 1976.”

Vice-President Joice Mujuru last week admitted that the five-year ZimAsset economic fix would not yield the desired results soon.