Newly-inaugurated Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has pledged to pay health workers, teachers, soldiers, police officers and civil service professionals in foreign currency from the end of this month. In return, he has asked that schools be re-opened and civil servants return to their desks by next Monday.
In the text of his inaugural address, released by his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) after he was sworn in on Wednesday, Tsvangirai said his top priorities were:
- establishing democracy in Zimbabwe,
- curbing the cholera outbreak and delivering food aid on a non-partisan basis; and
- ebuilding the economy.
But he said that to deal with the country’s humanitarian crisis, the new unity government had first to address the plight of civil servants.
“Our public service has ground to a halt as many of our patriotic government employees can no longer afford to eat, let alone pay for transport to their place of work,” he said. “Hard currency salaries will enable people to go to work, to feed their families and to survive until such time that we can begin to sustain ourselves as a country.”
Tsvangirai also said the unity government would scrap duties on food imports, introduce incentives to rebuild the local food industry and move towards restoring self-sufficiency in food production.
He addressed concerns among his supporters at the continued detention of opposition activists by saying that “while I will not interfere in the judicial process, I will make it a priority to ensure that the law is upheld and that the justice system deals with their cases in a fair, equitable and transparent manner in the shortest possible time frame…”
He promised to observe “a clear distinction between the party and the state” and appealed to supporters of both the MDC and President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF “to recognize the legitimacy and contribution of the other party to our nation's history and… future and work together to restore our pride in our people and our country.” He cautioned that it would take “time, commitment and unity of purpose” to rebuild the country.
Read the full text: Inauguration Speech of the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
