With economic challenges still hitting hard at civil servants whose payments are being eroded by price increases, teachers with disabilities are now requesting an audience with President Emmerson Mnangagwa regarding their welfare.
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) Secretary General Raymond Majongwe wrote a letter to addressed to the President stating that the challenges the civil servants with disabilities face are different from the rest of the government workers.
“Teachers with Disabilities from the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) are requesting a meeting with your honourable office at your convenience so that they can present a battery of challenges they are facing as a special group in their operations and livelihood,” Majongwe says in the letter.
“Unlike other group of workers, these teachers cannot do anything like moonlighting to supplement their income so their situation needs attention given the diminishing economic situation currently obtaining in the country.
Activists believe that people with disabilities, in general, risk getting inadequate medication if Zimbabwe’s economy remains challenging.
The disadvantaged group is also likely to have problems in getting special appliances such as crutched, wheel chairs, hearing aids, braille and artificial limps which will increase in prices if the economy continues to collapse according to those rights activists.
A human rights activist who spoke to an international media said that families carry the cost of looking after a disabled relative when poverty is already rampant, inflation is mounting and basic commodities are hard to find.
About a million Zimbabweans live with some form of disability, according to the United Nations.
Government critics question the ability of the Zimbabwean government in taking care of the disabled people within its own borders.
“Government here has failed to manage the economy and therefore can never be able to care for disabled persons,” said Elvis Mugari, a government critic quoted by Reuters.
Majongwe in the letter to Zimbabwe’s leader said, “As you may recall Comrade President in our meeting with you on the 21st of December 2018, we brought to your attention this same subject and in particular the case of a Mt ST Mary’s School teacher a Mr Mandizvidza (His plight remains unattended to date).
