Anti-riot police stopped a Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) annual general meeting (AGM) from taking on Thursday.
This is the second time in as many years that the PSMAS AGM has failed to take place. Yesterday police did not give reasons why they disrupted the meeting.
Civil servants’ representatives were chased away from the venue of the meeting.
Addressing journalists, the civil servants questioned why the Government wanted to take over the entity despite it being wholly owned by civil servants.
Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) president, Enock Dongo, described the disruption of the AGM by the police as hooliganism. Dongo said:
It is only prudent to give members the chance and opportunity to hold an AGM so that we can discuss the issues.
We are aware that besides government, there are also challenges as far as PSMI is concerned in terms of abuse of funds that we are hearing, which we want to confront at the AGM.
If we are blocked, where exactly are we going to vent and say what we want to say? This is the only platform where we can discuss these issues.
We are now very convinced that government has a hand as far as the problems at PSMI and PSMAS are concerned.
If not, they should allow us to have an AGM so we ask these boards.
We understand PSMAS’ AGM was supposed to be conducted last year but it was stopped by the same government.
If there is anything that they wanted to do, they should have done that over that year.
Reports suggest that public service officials have been pillaging PSMAS, PSMI and some of its investments, hence concerted efforts to block the AGM.