Zimbabwe: Move to Empower Women Politicians

February 20, 2008 – (AllAfrica) A women empowerment group has started holding training workshops for aspiring women parliamentarians. Women Trust began the programme to empower women candidates yesterday in Harare with 65 aspiring Zanu-PF women MPs in attendance.

The organisation's campaign manager, Ms Lydia Mavhengere, said they had embarked on training programmes to empower women politicians.

She said her organisation would soon be holding a similar workshop for aspiring MDC women MPs. Speaking at the workshop, the aspiring Zanu-PF MPs urged the Government to put effective measures in place to deal with corruption, saying the vice was militating against efforts to revive the economy.

They were agreed that corrupt elements in the society had to be dealt with irrespective of one's status. Mutasa-Nyanga Senate constituency candidate Cde Mandi Chimene said no meaningful economic development could be achieved without addressing the scourge of corruption.

"What pains us is that while a few greedy individuals are involved in corrupt activities the majority of Zimbabweans are suffering. "We must expose all those who are behind corruption without fear or favour," she said. Cde Chimene said there was need to recruit more staff for the Ministry of State Enterprises, Anti-Monopolies and Anti-Corruption as currently it was understaffed.

The aspiring MPs urged Government to address challenges facing the country that included shortage of medical drugs and the poor state of roads in the rural areas. Drought also came under the spotlight with the aspiring MPs calling upon the Government to ensure that food was readily available to those areas, which might have poor yields owing to excessive rains.

Participants also urged employers to pay workers salaries above the poverty datum line as currently most workers were struggling to survive.

From:http://allafrica.com/stories/200802200087.html