Concern raised over pensioners’ treatment

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MDC Proportional Representation legislator Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga has raised concern over the treatment of aged pensioners being audited in Bulawayo, saying they were being subjected to unfair conditions compared to their northern region counterparts.

MDC Proportional Representation legislator Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga has raised concern over the treatment of aged pensioners being audited in Bulawayo, saying they were being subjected to unfair conditions compared to their northern region counterparts.

BY NQOBILE BHEBHE

Misihairabwi-Mushonga raised the issue in Parliament on Thursday, where she said the elderly, some diabetic, were being made to queue for long hours outside school premises and queried whether those in Harare were being subjected to the same treatment.

“Can the (Finance) minister explain why in the process of trying to do that audit, we have to bring these elderly people to stand in queues the whole day?

“I can give you an example that as we speak right now, some of these pensioners have been standing in queues in Bulawayo at Milton Park School (Milton Junior School) with no food. They are there at 8am and the people who do the audit take their time to have tea,” she said.

“Is there no other process that could have been used to do a head count of these pensioners because, as you know, all of them are old and afflicted with a number of illnesses?”

Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga

In response, Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa said he was aware of the conditions pensioners were being subjected to during the audit exercise.

“Yes, I got to know of that complaint. It was conveyed to my ministry and we are looking into it with a view to rectifying the problem,” he said.

Earlier in the week, Misihairabwi-Mushonga insinuated in Parliament that Harare pensioners were well catered for.

She said: “When government decided that it was going to do a head count of those that should be receiving money so that it would decide on who the ghost workers are and who are not, I am not sure how they are doing it in Harare. But I did not see old people standing in a queue to be counted as pensioners. In Bulawayo at Milton (Junior School), you would find old people that are diabetic and not well standing in the queue. One begins to question whether we are dealing with these things differently.

“Have we now come to the northern region and said our pensioners will be dealt with in offices and in the southern region, they will be dealt with in a different way?”

In the past two weeks, on a daily basis, close to 1 000 elderly people have been queuing outside the Milton Junior School perimeter fence to have their papers verified to sniff out ghost elements believed to be illegally benefiting from State funds.

The Civil Service Commission says all those receiving pensions from the government, that is State service, war veterans, war victims, Zimbabwe ex-political prisoners, detainees and restrictees, national heroes’ dependants and death or injury on duty pensioners, should complete certificates of life.

The exercise started on September 7 and ends on October 30, 2015.

Pensioners are now required to fill in certificate of life forms each year to confirm that they are still alive and bona fide pensioners.