THE government will soon resume the vetting of war collaborators which had been suspended due to a shortage of funds, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Veterans of the Liberation Struggle minister Monica Mavhunga said this in the Senate last week during the question and answer session. She said the ministry had been allocated funds in the 2024 National Budget to resume the vetting exercise.
“We will continue to vet those who were left out and then we can gazette all the names at the same time. That will enable us to then be able to assist them once the process is completed,” she said.
Vetting of war collaborators to determine genuine members who are supposed to receive benefits is set out in the Zimbabwean Constitution. It was initiated following the realisation that there was a group of people who participated in the struggle to liberate the country from colonial rule who were not benefitting from the Veterans Fund.
Zimbabwe has thousands of war collaborators who require state assistance as some of them do not have gainful employment. Mavhunga said vetting would continue for war collaborators who were left out in 2022 when funds ran out, before gazetting of the names begins.
“I want to say in 2022, we started the process of vetting those who assisted in the war of liberation struggle, that is the (mujibhas and chimbwidos).
“We will gazette the names of those we vetted so people can have a say on whether or not they really assisted. We had, however, stopped the process because most of those involved in the struggle had not gotten the opportunity to participate,” she said. —New Ziana
