War vets endorse MDC Alliance town chair

Zimbabwe National Liberations of War Veterans Associations (ZNLWVA) national political commissar, Francis Nhando has praised Chiredzi town chairperson Gibson Hwende as an exemplary leader.

Hwende is an MDC Alliance councillor and he recently shocked Zanu-PF after he won the town chairperson position despite the fact that his party has fewer council seats than the ruling party.

His victory triggered a witch-hunt in Zanu-PF which accused and suspended two of its own councillors for selling out to the opposition.

Nhando, however, is of a different opinion as he feels none of the ruling party's four councillors in the town was competent enough for the job.

"Hwende was the right candidate for that post as there is no candidate in Zanu-PF who could match him. That guy has more leadership qualities than anyone else in council so I am convinced the councillors made the right choice," said Nhando.

He warned Zanu-PF not to expel the councillors it suspects of voting for Hwende, saying they just needed orientation on party ideology.

"Our councillors displayed a very clear and assessable training need. This deficiency extents to the local provincial leadership which itself has identifiable training needs. All is clear that our party's school (The Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology) must teach its cadres on the consequences of their actions," said Nhando.

He attacked corruption in government and the ruling party, saying there was no way towns and cities in the country could develop with the kind of corruption currently taking place.

"Stands corruption has become a national disaster involving big thieves. Today, as has happened in Chiredzi, our councils have been invaded by looting gangsters zvaana Mashayamombe kuHarare. Land is sold and council is left with no development capital. The result is poor service delivery while gangsters with unexplained wealth roam free," said Nhando.

He was referring to former Zanu-PF Harare province chairperson Shadreck Mashayamombe who has often been accused of being a land baron.

He warned that the criminals that surrounded former president Robert Mugabe before his overthrow in November 2017 were still free.

"Our problem is with the bureaucratic comprador. It looks like they are planted to make it impossible. How is it that chidudu chiye chekuGwanda Solar Project is not in prison? Kuwanza tenderpreneurship. This week we heard of those two guys from the Public Service (Commission). We can't be friends with anyone if we play chimuramu nemacriminals akadero," said Nhando.

Nhando was referring to Wicknell Chivhayo who failed to implement the Gwanda Solar Project despite being paid US$5 million in advance.

He was also referring to chief paymaster at the government Salaries Service Bureau (SSB), Brighton Chiuzungo and former permanent secretary in the Public Service ministry Ngoni Masoka.

Chiuzungo was recently suspended from work without pay on countless fraud allegations including making arbitrary allowance and salary increases of 40 percent for himself and collecting back pay of $6 600 backdated to January 2018. His alleged fraud prejudiced taxpayers of tens of millions of US dollars over several years.

Masoka on the other hand, is accused of irregularly employing dozens of his own relatives and registering hundreds of ghost workers in a coordinated scam that allowed him to siphon-off millions of dollars from the civil service since 2014.

In another scam, Chiuzungo and Masoka allegedly worked in cahoots and implemented a fraudulent vehicle scheme by which they would allocate luxury cars to the ghost workers on a yearly basis. They would then write off the previous vehicle allocations as ‘old' and allow themselves to buy the ‘old' vehicles at unbelievably low prices and claim the vehicles had been sold to the ‘workers'.