At a press conference in Harare, Pupurai Togarepi, the national chairperson for ZILIWACO said while his organisation acknowledged that government had no capacity to award cash gratuities to its members, it was important for government to come up with other mechanisms that ensured that its members were compensated.
“What we are asking for is financial compensation because we realise that the government has no capacity to do this because it does not have the resources to do that,” said Togarepi.
“We are calling on government to compensate war collaborators through the provision of free health services or exempting us from all forms of taxation for example as a starting point towards compensation.”
He said because government was currently struggling to finance its budget, the organisation had made this resolution in a move aimed at ‘ensuring that it does not overburden government.’
“We have not set any specific timelines for this but we have already started engaging government,” said Togarepi.
He said it was important for government to compensate war collaborators as a way of improving the welfare of the group, who constituted more than 60 percent of Zanu (PF)’s support base,
“When we look at the role that war collaborators played during the war, we realise that the majority of us are still nursing the effects of the war but we are hardly recognised for the important role that we played towards ensuring the freedom of this country,” said Togarepi.
ZILIWACO has in the past come out guns blazing accusing Zanu (PF) of neglecting its members despite their leading role in the liberation struggle.
The organisation alleges that their members had not benefited from the land reform programme or any other economic empowerment programme among a host of other benefits awarded to war veterans.
In 1997, war veterans were awarded Z$50 000 in gratuities each by President Robert Mugabe's government after embarking on a series of protests.
Economic analysts attributed the fall of the Zimbabwean dollar to the unbudgeted payouts which saw the Zimbabwean currency losing its value by 70 percent in one day saying this was the turning point for the country’s economic collapse.
Post published in: News