Harare – Lecturers at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) on Thursday staged a strike outside the campus over poor pay, days after police arrested some of the tertiary teachers.
The lecturers picketed outside the UZ campus, the oldest university in Zimbabwe in Mt Pleasant suburb calling for a review of their salaries.
The lecturers said they are getting a US$230 monthly salary which is not enough for them to pull through the month.
They want their salaries to be at US$2300.
Last week three UZ lecturers and members of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) were arrested.
“Zimbabwean university lecturers are the lowest paid in Southern Africa, a direct result of the massive looting of public funds by Zimbabwe’s dictator, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and his criminal cartels,” Hopewell Chin’ono, a journalist and activist said.
Zimbabwe’s economy has been deteriorating in the past years, and salaries were cut while the Zimbabwe dollar lost value.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa is under fire for running down the economy. Unemployment is over 80 percent while industry is facing problems to operate in the difficult economic environment.
A war veteran, Blessed Geza has called for mass stay aways to force Mnangagwa to step down but the veteran ruler has refused to resign.