‘Mat region marginalised’

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MDC Proportional Representation legislator Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga has said there is a sudden realisation that the country is experiencing hardships only when people in the northern parts get a pinch.

MDC Proportional Representation legislator Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga has said there is a sudden realisation that the country is experiencing hardships only when people in the northern parts get a pinch.

BY Nqobile Bhebhe

She said when factories in the Matabeleland region were shutting down and relocating elsewhere rendering thousands jobless, it was considered normal.

Contributing to the debate on President’s speech on Tuesday, she said the country only “wakes up” when the northern provinces begin to be affected.

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“When they watch us sitting in here and speaking so emotionally about a Labour Bill because all of a sudden, it has now affected, not only the southern region, but also the northern region as well, they begin to say okay, things only get bad when things are happening in the northern region, then people wake up.

“When it is happening to the southern region, it is okay and we can get away with it. So, if we are going to be fair it does not matter where things are happening; it does not matter whether people are in conflict in the northern region or they are in conflict in the southern region,” she said.

Misihairabwi-Mushonga said workers who lost their jobs in Matabeland due to de-industrialisation were not afforded three months’ notices of employment termination.

“If there is a place in which things have gone terribly wrong day in day out, it is the area around people who are coming from the southern region. The way the factories have closed, we are even talking here about some Bill that we are saying, we will give you two, three or one month.

“Those industries that have closed in Matabeleland, people have not even been given the opportunity for those small two or three months’ issues. They merely woke up, went to the company only to find it closed. There is no retrenchment package, there is absolutely nothing.

“As long as you have a part of a country and a State that believes that they are not part of the country, that they are being marginalised, whether that marginalisation is real or unreal, we need to deal with it.”

In the run-up to June by-election, Zanu PF in Bulawayo went for the jugular, distributing flyers indicating that Bulawayo had not been developed because it “is the only province that is outside the government and Zanu PF”.

The flyers angered the electorate, the majority of who are among thousands that have been thrown out of employment as de-industrialisation in Bulawayo, once the industrial hub of Zimbabwe, continues with no end in sight.