Felex Share Harare Bureau
President Robert Mugabe has commended war veterans for exhibiting exceptional discipline during the meeting he held with them at the City Sports Centre in Harare on Thursday. The President, who is the patron of the Zimbabwe National War Veterans’ Association, said he would work tirelessly to ensure their welfare and concerns were addressed.
He made the remarks while addressing members of the Zanu-PF Central Committee in Harare yesterday. “I want to thank those of you who’ve worked with the war veterans. You should have seen the discipline they had yesterday (Thursday),” President Mugabe said.
“They came and listened so intently to our speeches, but all previously to my interaction with them, having been divided into clusters, groups to discuss the themes and that went well. There was no noise, no abuses at all. They wanted to be informed about their welfare including health and school fees, pensions, funds for their funerals among other issues.”
President Mugabe, who met more than 10,000 war veterans drawn from all the 10 provinces, said he was moved by the humility displayed by the war veterans.
“They’re part of the markers of what we are, that’s our Independence,” he said.
“I was actually moved just by the fact of their discipline. They came as war veterans and I promised them that I will be meeting them annually, and I know that annually is a bit far, and we’ve created deliberately, a Ministry that takes care of their welfare.”
He said he would equip the Ministry of Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Political Detainees and Restrictees with resources such as computers.
Said the President: “That Ministry, I will equip it with computers so that we monitor the situation of the comrades. We will computerise the system and that way we get to know each and every one, that is the state he or she will be in. That Ministry is the medium and, we will rely on it for information and the situation about war veterans.”
The war veterans had about five thematic areas they presented to the President, namely, statutory benefits, economic empowerment and preferential treatment to economic opportunities and indigenisation, party ideology, threats to the party and revolution and liberation war heritage.
Zimbabwe, President Mugabe said, had about 37,000 war veterans who deserved to be catered for as they contributed immensely to the liberation of the country.
Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association spokesperson Cde Douglas Mahiya, said the meeting with the President was a success as it had opened avenues for communication with their patron.
“One of our expectation was to open a channel of communication for us to be able to meet him from time to time and that we achieved because he promised to meet us once per year,” he said.
“Secondly, he agreed with us that we’re the custodians of the party and we put to him things which we think have gone wrong in the party especially the commissariat department and he listened. The President also talked about us working hard to ensure the party is back on its rails and that we will do.”