Trade unions ask government to drop AIDS levy

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has appealed to the government to drop a proposed AIDS tax or face the prospect of a potentially crippling nationwide strike. Isidore Zindoga, the ZCTU’s acting secretary-general, told IRIN on Tuesday that the 3 percent AIDS levy announced by Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa in his budget for the year 2000 would “hit workers on low salaries hard” because it would be in addition to the average low-income 15 percent taxation they already pay on monthly salaries often as low as the equivalent of US $100. “We are consulting with our branches around the country on what action should be taken if the response from Mr Murerwa is negative. In our letter we pointed out that this levy was imposed without consultation, and we suggested alternatives such as a health insurance scheme or the reduction of the defence budget,” Zindoga said. Other labour sources in Zimbabwe told IRIN the ZCTU’s 400,000-plus members, were expected to overwhelmingly endorse collective job action to force the authorities to back down on the so-called AIDS levy during consultations expected to be completed by the end of the week. “It is unfair to impose another tax on workers who are facing poverty, and daily having to deal with the consequences of very high inflation, now running at 70 percent, and very low incomes. If they turn us down, to be very frank about it, there will be a problem,” Zindoga said. Last week, the ZCTU general council decided in crisis talks to resist the government’s attempt to impose the levy due to take effect in January. According to official figures, about 1,200 people are dying weekly in Zimbabwe of HIV/AIDS-related causes. The number of people getting infected is calculated at 2,000 per week. Zimbabwe, which has a population of 12 million, currently has approximately 300,000 so-called AIDS orphans. Zindoga said: “The HIV/AIDS issue is so important, but there are other means, as we have suggested, to deal with what has become a family issue - a family issue because it affects every family, the families of all our workers.” The latest issue of the weekly ‘Financial Gazette’ quoted the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), the umbrella body for Zimbabwe’s struggling manufacturing sector, as saying the levy was a “half-baked measure” which the government should revisit so as to avoid inflaming an already restive population.