Chief Charumbira says 'Sick economy fuelling prostitution.'

SOME families have resorted to using their daughters as bate so they can lure men who can then take care of them financially because of economic hardships Zimbabwe is facing, President of the Chiefs’ Council, Chief Fortune Charumbira has said.

Chief Charumbira noted such situations were a result of the hardships people were facing because of poverty.

The chief said this while participating at a Joint Suppliers and Producers Conference Thursday at the 2015 Mine Entra to illustrate that ordinary people were the ones who bore the brunt of the dying industry.

Chief Charumbira says 'Sick economy fuelling prostitution.'Chief Charumbira

“Yesterday I went to the city centre and I came across one or two persons who told me that times were hard and people were suffering. It is hard for the common man and if you go to the high density areas, families are asking their daughters who are 18 years and above to go out and come back the next day. That’s how life is difficult for some families,” said the chief.

Chief Charumbira said this poverty was an effect of an under performing industry that was doing little to inspire economic confidence.

The chief, who before, passionately urged mining companies to be “real” and drive community development, said they should start procuring equipment locally instead of importing and revive local industry.

His plea comes after it emerged that only 11 percent of local goods are supplied to the mining sector while the rest is imported.

“Let us grow our industry, we are killing our industry by importing products that are made here, we are even importing water… we are eating and drinking food from Botswana, that is very irresponsible. We are creating an environment where poverty reigns and creating more hardships leading to unemployment,” he said.

The principal chief noted that such hardships would create tension and bring up other problems as well.

“Political tension will rise and other tensions that we don’t know will rise and that will create a catastrophe. I emphasise again, let us not kill its industry,” he said.

Chief Charumbira made a veiled attack on some mining firms who favoured foreign made goods because they received kickbacks from those entities.

“Some of you know what’s in your pockets, some of the things you are talking about here are not true – you are hiding something but in that process we are killing our own country. Let’s think twice about what we are doing to our industry,” he said.

In his presentation on the drive to increase local procurement in mining sector, Managing Director of James North, Sifelani Jabangwe, said there was a need for a shared vision between mining and other industrial sectors to support each other.

“Mining can exist in country without procuring goods and services from the host country since al inputs can be imported but there is need for linkages because for every single mining job approximately two jobs are created in other sectors,” Jabangwe said.