CIVIL servants who defied government’s order to be vaccinated against COVID-19 should not report for duty starting Monday, their employer said yesterday.
The civil servants will also be denied their salaries and
allowances.
Though it could not be immediately established how many
civil servants will be affected by the order, there are fears that thousands
have not been vaccinated due to logistical challenges, religion and other
factors.
Government, through a gazette of September 17, gave its
workers until yesterday to get jabbed, failure which will result in them being
barred from work, forfeiting their salaries and allowances.
COVID-19 chief co-ordinator in the President’s Office,
Agnes Mahomva, said no unvaccinated civil servants would be allowed at work
starting Monday until they get their doses.
She said the move was not meant to punish, but to protect
the general public.
“Everybody is following Statutory Instrument 234 of 2021
and legally, that is what is binding everyone. So, whether there are any other
decisions that come later but for now, everybody is bound by the law,” Mahomva
said.
“People might appeal, talk about this and so on but within
the timelines of the law, that is what is on the ground now. It’s like saying
someone should have a licence, but have someone saying he or she is appealing
not to have one.
“As long as that law is there, it is the one speaking to what
is on the ground. We just need to abide by the law and if the people haven’t,
they stay home according to the law and if something changes, it will be
communicated as usual.
“It is really genuinely trying to say, look, you have to be
protected, not to say, we want people not to work as punishment. Government is
taking health as a priority.”
Information permanent secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana said
the civil servants who refuse to be vaccinated would be subjected to
disciplinary action.
“D-Day for civil servants (as) today is the deadline for
civil servants to get vaccinated or be barred from the workplace and not get
paid while so barred,” Mangwana said.
“Those who refuse to be fully vaccinated shall be subject
to disciplinary action for refusing to obey a lawful instruction,” he added.
But civil servants described the move as grossly unfair.
Zimbabwe Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions
secretary-general David Dzatsunga described the move as victimisation.
“When it comes to workers, it should be a product of
dialogue. Let us sit down and agree on
how this can be administered so that we don’t have victimisation,” he said.
“You cannot just make pronouncements that affect people
without involving them. You cannot use a counterproductive command approach on
such issues. It can have a disruptive effect and is clear victimisation.”
Last month, government said it would force unvaccinated
civil servants and teachers to resign in a bid to ramp up the uptake of
COVID-19 jabs.
Meanwhile, Mahomva told a Science Café in Harare that
Zimbabwe’s vaccination programme has been marred by setbacks despite being
viewed as one of the best in Africa.
She said the challenges were mainly technical with human
resources leading the toll.
“The vaccination programme has been doing much better but
it has its own challenges, we will never lie about it. We have challenges with
human resources,” she said.
There has been widespread criticism of the programme which
started in February this year as a control measure to the deadly global
pandemic that has been ravaging the world since December 2019.
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