via War collaborators demand $2,3 billion gratuity – NewsDay Zimbabwe January 22, 2016
AN estimated $2,3 billion is required to pay gratuities to war collaborators if the same formula used to pay war veterans in 1987 is applied, a senior government official has said.
by VENERANDA LANGA
Secretary for the War Veterans ministry Retired Brigadier General Walter Asher Tapfumaneyi said assuming each of the 200 000 war collaborators and 47 000 ex-detainees is to be paid $7 500 gratuities each, the amount would definitely shake the economy.
Tapfumaneyi said this on Wednesday while addressing war veterans and war collaborators attending a Centre for Legal Research-sponsored workshop in Kariba on legislation and alignment of war veterans laws with the Constitution.
“Even Parliament will walk out. They want gratuities equivalent to 75% of what was paid to war veterans in 1987 at the value of the US dollar and we arrived at $7 500. But we want to be realistic and ask for things that are manageable,” he said.
“We have noticed the issue of fragmented legislation where we have the War Veterans Act, Political Detainees Act and War Collaborators Act, but we need to come up with one law that covers all three, and two other categories that are excluded in the legislation, which are non-combatant cadres and nationalists who led and conceived the liberation struggle, but were not benefiting as war veterans because they are not in positions of power.”
Tapfumaneyi said proper criteria must be set in order to sift out bogus war collaborators and ex-detainees.
He said there was need to align war veterans laws with the Constitution, adding failure to do that deprived them from enjoying their constitutional rights and access to land and mining rights.
“We want a new title for the Act to be the Liberation War Veterans Act and for it to outline separate responsibilities between the minister and the board. We are a fully fledged ministry and whatever the minister does, he should not answer to the Minister of Finance, but we are answerable to the President,” the warvets secretary said.
Tapfumaneyi chided divisive elements among warvets. He said the law did not discriminate on which warvets should benefit even those who fought during the war, but were no longer Zanu PF members like Jabulani Sibanda.
War Veterans minister Christopher Mutsvangwa also told delegates that the War Veterans ministry was now courting Western countries to assist their projects. He said the United States and the European Union had now softened their stance and were working with warvets.
“We are developing our relations with the EU as a ministry and for the first time in 35 years the EU has programmes to support war veterans. They are keen to work with our ministry. We are going to have good relations with all diplomats working in the country,” Mutsvangwa said.
COMMENTS
The war veterans and collaborators brought what Zim has become… they have received their due. Let them wallow in it.
It wasn’t a revolution… it was a bank heist in disguise, and the loot has been taken. Check out the cars and mansions, farms and Swiss bank accounts, their kids living the high life in foreign lands, and you’ll see where the country’s assets went… or is that too much barren honesty to swallow..?
You and your parents once had jobs, good jobs. You had businesses and you were competitive. There was education and provisions and medical care for everyone. You fed the nation, and the nations of others, and took pride in your standing among nations. The economy was growing, in spite of real sanctions against you by the West. You’d given your sons in the battles against Nazism and Fascism. You were the best at so many things, and set the standard for others to follow. Being Zimbabwean was special.
But, you preferred what you have… so, I feel pity only for the innocent ones caught in the wake of your destruction.
When British soldiers were demobbed after defeating Hitler they got a coat and a pair of shoes, and they were soldiers. These ‘collaborators’ are nothing but chancers who have been complicit in the destruction of the country together with their imbecilic party. Zimbabwe is effectively a failed state who now has to beg for food from ‘the filthy imperialists’
Perfect analysis of whats happened to our country at the hands of these would be revolutionaries.
Forgive me if I am wrong in sensing anger at the rest of the Zimbabwean populace?
Anger that they decided there could possibly be better things beyond a second-citizen-life under Smith?
Smith and his cronies were wrong.
Bob and his ZANU are worse.
No anger “at the rest of the populace”, for not all supported the bank heist. Astute people, common men who suspected or recognized the real motive of the “popular front” leaders, intelligent enough to see the future, and realize how much Zimbabwe had to lose… and how the outcome would (and did) effect them personally. Those had productive lives, but the thugs took that all away, and now they must scratch for a living.
Perhaps anger at those so easily duped into supporting the bank heist. Anger at those who had a life, but were incensed that others had wealth. Anger that those same ones now have no life, but are amazingly content that wealth still remains in the hands of only a few. They supported violence against the racist white regime, but do not even speak against a worse racist, tribalist, black regime that has taken far more from Zim than Ian Smith ever did. These are not only “worse” or even “far worse”… these destroyers are not even in the same class of evil.
Yes, I consent to feeling anger, because so many innocents who previously had care now go hungry, uneducated, and without medical care… all because some who had enough wanted the wealth instead, so they took it and destroyed the prize. Zim has become a beggar-nation because of them. There’s nothing left to take pride in… unless it’s those few elite with Swiss bank accounts. The “haves” who daily spit upon the “have nots”.
It seems only selective vision could keep anyone from seeing the truth that screams so loudly.