FULL TEXT: "PTUZ Mobilises Teachers To Resist 2.5% Tax To Feed The Army"
The Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) has said that it is urging all teachers to resist the recent resolution by the government to deduct a monthly 2.5% from all government workers.
The government announced that the deducted fee will go to a state savings fund but the union is claiming that the government intends to use the money to fund the purported garrison shops which will be in camps and barracks.
We present below PTUZ’s statement in full.
PTUZ MOBILISES TEACHERS TO RESIST 2.5% TAX TO FEED THE ARMY
27 February 2020
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Ptuz will mobilise teachers across union divide in particular and civil servants in general to resist the introduction of 2.5% to feed the army. For the Finance Minister, Mthuli Ncube, let alone Cabinet to agree to tax civil servants 2.5% to set up shops that will sell subsidised commodities to members of the army is the worst lunacy ever seen in human history.
Mthuli Ncube is a human epidemic bent on entrenching poverty and misery among teachers and the earlier we mobilise, organise rather than agonise, the better. Such thuggery, thievery and robbery of $10.5 million from starvation wages of teachers per month and $18.750 million per month from civil servants is not only callous, vapid, vague and vacuous but monumental injustice that can never be accepted by any civilised nation 40 years after independence. That the army has guns is inconsequential, and even if it means picking up arms against Cabinet in order to be respected, so be it. We cannot be treated as if we are of no a count.
We want to make it categorically clear, without any equivocation or ambiguity, that taking up arms against any obnoxious issue and injustice is no vice. It is even a mockery to a real national army that protects the territorial integrity and security of the nation to be treated in such an insultive manner, baffling common sense and logic. The Cabinet must be reminded that if they are so much interested in uplifting the image of the army, they must pay the army well so that individuals are able to buy from shops of their choice. Reducing soldiers to ridicule and subsidisation by civil servants, is dangerous, a security threat and compromises civil-military relations. It is clear that economic bandits masquerading as leaders have integrated soldiers to share their plunder and loot as a safety valve that may all the way trigger a revolution from those marginalised, exploited and disarticulated.
In a meeting held on 26 February 2020, Ptuz National Executive members resolved to urgently mobilise teachers to resist the grinding 2.5% tax by any means necessary. Ptuz NEC also agreed to engage a high gear in clamouring for the restoration of their purchasing power parity. This call has further been vindicated by unofficial dollarisation of Zimbabwean economy in which rentals, medication, fuel, school fees are paid in US$ or pegged against US$. The only way forward is going forward in advancing the interests of teachers and defending any gains made. Mthuli Ncube and Cabinet must never underestimate the power of teachers in particular and civil servants in general in their numbers. No amount of brutality and pampering of the army will stop an idea whose time has come. When real winds of discontent blow, no amount of threats can continue to bottle up pent up forces and legitimate demands of a living wage, that resonate with inter-bank rate.
Aluta Continua
Dr Takavafira M. Zhou (Ptuz President)
