By Fortune Tazvida
Struggling national airline Air Zimbabwe has announced that striking pilots and cabin crew have been sacked after they ignored a 24 hour ultimatum issued on Thursday last week to return to work. The workers are owed US$ 3 million in unpaid salaries and allowances.
While Air Zimbabwe chairman Jonathan Kadzura boldly declared that they would not entertain the demands from the strikers, Nehanda Radio.com can exclusively reveal the shocking salary scandal that has infuriated most of the pilots and cabin crew on strike.
Even though the pilots are earning between US$1 300 and US$1 500 at the end of every month Air Zimbabwe has not been paying up their allowances promising instead to pay up the accruing debt later on. This has led to the airline owing its workers more than US$3 million in allowances.
But while all other workers have not been getting their money on time for the past 18 months, the son of the late Vice President Simon Muzenda, a long serving pilot, has had no such problems.
Exposing the culture of corruption at the airline even the two children of the Chief Executive Officer Peter Chikumba have also been getting their money on time. An insider told Nehanda Radio.com ‘so if they are broke and don’t have money to pay us why are they paying Muzenda and Chikumba’s children on time?’
Air Zimbabwe has been forced to cancel several flights leaving up to 1000 passengers stranded. They hired planes from South Africa to ply some of the regional and domestic routes. Ironically they have to pay more for these arrangements than if they just paid up what they owe their own staff.
Meanwhile we can also exclusively reveal that an enraged Robert Mugabe told Air Zimbabwe bosses to shut down the airline if its workers remained on strike. The Zimbabwean dictator occasionally hijacks Air Zimbabwe planes for his own use, resulting in costly flight cancellations that have drained the airline.
