admin
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
THE Zanu-PF National Secretary for War Veterans, Cde Douglas Mahiya, has called on the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to immediately act on unscrupulous businesspeople who are ignoring Governments’ call to reduce prices of goods despite the exchange rate tumbling.
Cde Mahiya was speaking at a meeting of members of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association in Bulawayo yesterday.
“We want to trace how some of these prices are arrived at, sometimes goods are not in the shops, but are found on the streets. How?
“We want to find where these people on the streets are getting their goods from and if we discover they are being given by some businesses then those businesses must have their licences revoked,” he said.
“We must trace pricing right from the manufacturer.”
He said heads must also roll if manufacturers were found on the wrong side.
“I want to liberate the general public, if we do not find a justification for the prices we will revoke the licences of the manufacturers and find alternative people whose work is consumer centric.
“Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu must ensure that manufacturers put reasonable prices and we also want the manufacturers to sell their goods within the confines of the law, not to get manufactures running tuck shops where their goods are being sold while shops are empty.”
Turning to the welfare of was veterans, Cde Mahiya said freedom fighters deserve respect.
“We want war veterans to be respected and not be used, we want to make our own decisions and not have people dictating to us and this must be done through our associations’ secretariat.
“We need to be consulted on our welfare and not to be told what we need; you do not go to a doctor and tell him what medication you need. War veterans’ issues can only be prescribed by the war veterans themselves,” he said.
Cde Mahiya said the Bulawayo City Council should also incorporate war veterans in housing projects.
“We must also access business stands to carry out our projects.
“If you fail to access these do not hesitate to inform us that there are people who are denying us stands and we deal with them,” said Cde Mahiya.
Cde Mahiya added it was important that war veterans and their children be represented in Zanu-PF structures.
Cde Mahiya also said Cde Cephas Ncube who is the Bulawayo provincial war veterans chairperson must ideally be the Zanu-PF provincial chairman.
“We now need to campaign in order to ensure that Cde Ncube gets to be in the structures and be the chairman of the party together with other war veterans.
“They have to make decisions at party level, we want that, war veterans are the backbone and power of the people,” he said.
Bongani Ndlovu