Own Correspondent|Activists and Civil Society leaders from Matabeleland have implored on President Emmerson Mnangagwa to work on equalizing all the sixteen official languages in the country and free Matabeleland from being dominated by Shona speaking people.
Sources who attended a closed doors no holds barred dialogue between Mnangagwa and members of the Matabeleland Collective told ZimEye.com that the members of the collective told President Mnangagwa that people from the region which is home to most of the sixteen official languages, feel short changed by the dominance of Shona speaking people especially in government departments in the region who refuse to speak local languages.
Members of the Collective reportedly told Mnangagwa that the region is not happy with the huge deployment of Shona speaking people especially in education where teachers fail to speak to children in local languages.
The collective also questioned the dominance of Shona speaking people in sectors such as the police, health institutions and most government departments where they continue to demand for locals to speak to them in Shona when they seek services from government.
The collective further asked President Mnangagwa to protect local people by barring the importation of menial labour into the region as they accused Shona speaking people of taking over the menial jobs through nepotism and failing to employ locals to do the jobs.
In response President Mnangagwa however failed to commit himself to solving the matter indicating that Zimbabwe should be open for a free movement of people from all corners of the country.
According to the sources, President Mnangagwa said that the government will urgently work on modalities that will make sure that children from primary school level will be mandated to learn more than one of the indigenous languages especially Ndebele and Shona.
Mnangagwa further promised that government will review deployment policies and ensure that all heads of government departments have a bias towards the region they are working in.
Mnangagwa met with over sixty representatives of civic organisations from Matabeleland at State House on Thursday.