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War veterans want $18 000 gratuity

by Midlands Correspondent
18 Jun 2012 at 11:42hrs | Views
WAR veterans want Government to pay them $18 000 each which they claim is part of the gratuity that the Government still owes them after being initially paid a Z$50 000 lump sum each in 1997.

They says Government, under the War Veterans Act, unveiled a Z$500 000 peck as gratuity for each liberation war fighter.

In an interview yesterday, Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans (ZNLWVA) secretary general Cde Shadreck Makombe said the war veterans were growing impatient over the Government's failure to pay them the money.

He said war veterans were expecting to get $18 000 each which he said is equivalent to Z$500 000 which the Government is supposed to give them as gratuity.

"When we were given Z$50 000 each in the 1990s, each war veteran was supposed to get Z$500 000 and by then the Z$50 000 was equivalent to $2 000 while the Z$500 000 was equivalent to $20 000. This means the Government still owes each of us $18 000 in gratuity and as the liberation fighters, we feel we have been neglected and long forgotten," he said.

Cde Makombe said there were a myriad of benefits provided for them under the War Veterans Act which he said they were, however, not enjoying.

"Under the War Veterans Act (1997), Statutory 280 and 281, we have a wide range of benefits. There is talk of loan benefit, education benefit, gratuity, funeral grant, among others, but as war vets we are not enjoying anything of this except for the Z$50 000 we got in 1997," he said.

Cde Makombe said some countries in the Southern African Development Committee (Sadc) region were offering lucrative benefits in honour of their liberation war fighters, a development which he said was yet to be achieved in Zimbabwe.

He said the Ministry of Finance should do something towards their $18 000 gratuity each.

"We appreciate that our economy is coming from a very difficult situation but at least the Ministry of Finance should do something in recognition of the sacrifices that the war veterans made. It is not that we are after money. We did not go to war for money but the issue of gratuity is the case the world over.

"In fact in the Sadc region, Zimbabwe is the only country which is still to really do something in honour of the work done by the war veterans save for the Z$50 000 which we were given in the 1990s," he said.

Cde Makombe said the association would push hard through the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home Affairs to have their case heard.

Source - TC