Air Zimbabwe lays off half its workforce amid financial woes
Zimbabwe's state-owned airline has laid off 200 workers, roughly half of its staff, with immediate effect.
The
job losses are part of a turnaround strategy to bring struggling Air
Zimbabwe back to profitability from a $300m (£230m) debt.
Last month the EU banned it from using its airspace, citing safety concerns.
There
have been major changes at the national airline since President Robert
Mugabe's son-in-law took over as chief operating officer last year.
'Struggling to keep afloat'
"We
were overstaffed by a lot and we are also trying to weed out people
without the right qualifications," the airline's chairwoman Chipo Dyanda
said on Wednesday.
"The retrenchment is meant to give space to the airline so that we can redeploy the money saved back into the company."
An
Air Zimbabwe spokesperson told state media that management has also
been trimmed from 28 to just 12 and the finance department from 36 to
17.
The airline has struggled to keep afloat over the last decade and
plans to carry out a restructuring exercise that will include retraining
for all staff, including top management.
Unconfirmed reports say
that a name change is also in the pipeline - a move many believe is an
attempt to ring-fence the airline's debt and reduce the threat of
creditors seizing the planes.
The BBC's Shingai Nyoka in Harare
says that President Mugabe is a frequent flier on the airline, often
leasing out the largest plane for state visits and private medical
visits to the Far East.
In May, President Mugabe said that Zimbabwe was the most-highly developed country in Africa after South Africa. He denied that the country was in a fragile state.
Zimbabwe
has been struggling to pay its civil servants recently and is ranked
24th on the UNDP's Human Development Index for Africa.
BBC
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