Harare, January 24, 2012 - Firebrand MDC99 leader, Job Sikhala has stormed into the current civil servants' strike by inviting the poorly paid government workers to back his current attempts to overthrow the President Robert Mugabe led inclusive government.

Sikhala told journalists at a party press briefing in Harare Tuesday afternoon Mugabe's extravagance and continued failure to end the plunder of the country's natural resources by his lieutenants was the cause of the government workers' misery.

Sikhala, who has in the past few weeks been clamouring for Mugabe’s ouster accusing the veteran leader of dictatorship, called on Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of the Lovemore Matombo led faction of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union, to lead the demonstrations.

Majongwe, another firebrand activist, is also secretary general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, which is prominently involved in current demands for a salary review under the auspices of Apex Council, government's workers' chief negotiating arm.

“They (civil servants) must stop the soft approach,” Sikhala said, “We know Raymond Majongwe and others as militant leaders. They must now  confront this regime head-on.

“They must now call strikes and marches into streets and if they realise that this week’s call for demonstrations is not successful, they must go into overdrive next week and call even for the overthrow of this regime as it has failed them.

“We encourage them to become more militant and run away from the politics of passivism. We have been living with politics of passivism for a long time.”

The former MDC MP for St Marys late last year led less than a dozen party loyalists into a street march to President Mugabe's Munhumutapa offices, demanding his resignation.

They however abandoned the march just before police could close in on them.

Sikhala accused Public Service Minister Lucia Matibenga, who was elected Vice President of the George Nkiwane led ZCTU faction, of arrogance and taking the ZCTU factionalism to government.

"Matibenga thinks Majongwe is out to undermine her as the minister," said Sikhala.

“She should have given audience to the civil servants. She throws insults to the civil servants from her high office through the press.

"Such kind of discourtesy and arrogance should not be allowed in our politics. All of a sudden, two months into office you are so arrogant and so discourteous to a constituency that voted you to where you are."

Sikhala called for her immediate resignation.