Mugabe’s nephew Leo seeks removal of ZCTU leaders via parliament

By Lance Guma
30 October 2006

Makonde legislator Leo Mugabe, who is also Robert Mugabe’s nephew, will this week seek to move a motion in parliament calling on the labour minister to remove the elected leadership of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). According to a Sunday Mail report Leo Mugabe wants the leadership removed "for unethical conduct ... and for abandoning its core business of representing workers to pursue politics.’ He argues that labour minister Nicholas Goche has the power to suspend or fire union officials in special circumstances related to ‘gross mismanagement, criminal conduct or the failure to execute the mandate of unions to represent workers on labour issues.’

Leo Mugabe who was arrested a few months ago for illegally exporting wheat, is reported to have placed his motion on the parliamentary diary last week. Only an adjournment in parliamentary business pushed the matter into this week the paper said. Another Zanu PF MP, Daniel Mackenzie Ncube, has already seconded the motion. An investigation by the Ministry of Labour into the ZCTU a few months ago, following allegations the union violated strict foreign currency rules, is now being seen as part of this process.

Harare lawyer Jessie Majome, who is also the deputy secretary for legal and parliamentary affairs in the opposition, says the development shows how Zanu PF manipulates the law to deal with its opponents. She said the fact that Mugabe’s own nephew is pushing the motion when he comes from a constituency that does not have many workers betrayed the true intentions of the ruling party. Majome says the harassment and beating up of trade union leaders has failed to discourage them and Zanu PF was now looking at ‘pseudo-legal’ routes of dealing with them. She says if the law is not on government’s side they always change it to suit their agenda.

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