Progressive Teachers Union Of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) President, Mr Takavafira Zhou says the decision of sending back unvaccinated civil servants home is unfortunate and ill-conceived saying that vaccination must remain voluntary and not mandatory.
In an interview with 263times, Mr Zhou said government must learn from the case they recently lost against mandatory vaccination to the church.
“We must invest in encouraging civil servants to be vaccinated through explaining to them about the efficacy of vaccination, at any rate the government recently lost a case against the church over the issue of mandatory vaccination and must learn from such mistakes.
“Our constitution is also clear over non discrimination, it is therefore a discriminatory process to force civil servants to be vaccinated,” he said.
Mr Zhou added that the government must learn to approach its workers in an acceptable way.
“It is also unnecessary for government to set itself on a collision course against its workers.
“Government must learn to engage its workers and entice them to be vaccinated, Commands approach would only work in the armed forces and not with other professionals,” he said.
Moreover, Mr Zhou said the other reason civil servants especially teachers are not vaccinated is because the vaccination process is highly centralized.
“At any rate the reason why many civil servants, particularly teachers, are not vaccinated is that we have inadequate vaccines, the vaccination process is highly centralized.
“A decentralization process and creation of many centers and cooperation with government workers would see more and more voluntarily receiving the vaccine,” said Zhou.
This came following, the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Monica Mutsvangwa who yesterday said all civil servants should be vaccinated and those not vaccinated will not be allowed to go to work.
