Source: Ex-ZPRA veterans bitter over Tshinga Dube expulsion – NewsDay Zimbabwe October 12, 2017
THE ZPRA Veterans’ Association has sensationally claimed that War Veterans minister Tshinga Dube was axed from Cabinet because he was a moderate, who did not discriminate against former fighters not linked to the ruling Zanu PF party.
BY SILAS NKALA
President Robert Mugabe on Monday made a shock Cabinet reshuffle in which he dropped three ministers and reassigned 10 others, accusing them of underperforming.
The axe fell on Dube, Priscah Mupfumira (Public Service), and Abednico Ncube (Rural Development).
ZPRA Veterans’ Association secretary-general Petros Sibanda yesterday said Dube was a victim of Zanu PF internal fights, which had nothing to do with his performance.
“When Dube was appointed as a minister of war vets, we were very happy as we respect him since he is one of our ZPRA commanders,” Sibanda said.
“We looked at him for resolutions of our welfare issues, especially in Matabeleland region which was affected by serious lack of recognition in the vetting process. We are saying we are unhappy about his sudden removal from the ministry because we do not know if the new minister [Cain Mathema] will continue where he left or not.”
Sibanda said Dube had initiated the move to change the War Veterans’ Act to include all groups of people who participated in the liberation struggle.
He said the new Act that Tshinga was working on had six categories such as the nationalist, trained fighter, former political detainees and restrictees, non-combatants cadres and war collaborators— all which make up war veterans.
“This is a big blow to us that Dube is just stopped in the middle of the road and we are unhappy about it. They should have allowed him to finish the programmes he had started,” Sibanda said.
“This appears to be the norm that War Veterans ministers are be sacked on political grounds while still busy sorting out our issues since the inception of this ministry. There are many deserving war veterans who have died and some are still dying in poverty when their ministers are just sacked under unclear circumstances before making any progress.”
There are swirling speculative reports that Dube could have angered Mugabe after he openly challenged the Zanu PF leader to name his successor.
Sources said his other crime was his association with the Christopher Mutsvangwa-led executive of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association.
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