"Police boss Matanga dragged to court", 18 Feb 2018

The Hwange Colliery Company has dragged Police Commissioner-General Tandabantu Godwin Matanga to the High Court seeking an urgent order to force him to give orders to the police to eject people who have been protesting at the company's premises in Hwange. Wives of employees of the company besieged the company offices protesting that the coal mining firm pay their husbands their outstanding salaries. In the urgent chamber application for an interdict filed through its lawyers...Hwange Colliery is seeking the court to force the police to evict the protestors...According to the application, Hwange's business activities at the main office have been disturbed since 29 January by a group of demonstrators purporting to be the the wives of the company's employees...In his founding affidavit deposed together with the application, company secretary and legal representative Mr Allen Masiya said the company was also seeking an interdict against the demonstrators...Wives of HCCL employees have been demanding that the coal mining company fulfils its pledge to pay them outstanding salaries, after agreeing to a scheme of arrangement last year. Hundreds of women camped at the management office in Hwange where they used tree branches to block management from entering the premises. Some of them have been sleeping at the premises as part of their demonstration.