Some unidentified Truck drivers have insulted Labour Minister and Social Security Joyce Simukoko and her Home Affairs counterpart Stephen Kampyongo for allegedly causing confusion for them.
But Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Truck drivers Association vice general secretary Evans Siyabonga says he is not aware that some drivers insulted the minister.
Meanwhile, Simukoko says she does not want to bother responding to people she doesn’t know.
Truck drivers have been on a strike, demanding better conditions of service.
Recently, Minister of Works and Supply Mutotwe Kafwaya said government, through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, had already commenced meetings with sector unions, in order to put in place a joint council, to establish the specific conditions of service required.
But after meeting Simukoko, some truck drivers were not satisfied and recorded themselves hurling unprintables at herself and her Home Affairs counterpart, an audio which went viral on social media.
But Simukoko said she neither wanted to listen to the audio nor take any action.
“Let them insult! Is there a phone number? You can’t answer to somebody who you don’t know and there is no number. You allow them to do what they want. If insulting will add value to their life, that is fine for them. I don’t look at things that don’t add value to my life. I wish them luck. I am sure he doesn’t even know me so answering to such things is a waste of time I have other valuable things to do. I don’t even like listening to crap! I have a lot of things to listen to that add value to my life, life is very short to be wasting time so I wouldn’t bother wasting my time to listen to things [where] somebody just wakes up in the morning and starts insulting me I think that person doesn’t even know me. So I would not be bothered,” said Simukoko in an interview, Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in a separate interview Siyabonga said he would make efforts to identify the drivers.
“I am not aware of that [recording]. We can never condone acts of violence and vulgar language and in any case, we are lobbying the minister to come up with a minimum wage that will make us happy. Does it make sense for the same people to start insulting the same person who is supposed to sign the Statutory Instrument (SI )? No! Let us respect the leaders lets engage professionally, on where we feel we can provide alternatives, suggestions and make sure things happen the way we want to the government we do that,” said Siyabonga
“But when you are leading a group of drivers, you expect so many different characters others will rubbish what you have said, others will appreciate so it is obvious more especially what happened during the strike, a lot of people feel the government doesn’t care enough all they can do is protect their interest. So I am sure that is the set of drivers that may have been insulting which is not supposed to be the case. I will try to follow up with other forums that we have and see if I can get what those two drivers said.”