OWN CORRESPONDENT

Former ZIPRA combatants are soon to hold an emergency meeting to review progress towards the recovery of their properties seized by Government during the Gukurahundi era in the early 1980’s.
The meeting comes amid mounting allegations that some of the properties had been sold by some former PF-ZAPU officials, which places doubts on the feasibility of the exercise.
A source within the meeting organisers says the meeting is in response to a statement by the board of the former ZIPRA/NITRAM last week which stated that a report with an inventory of the properties and prospective shareholders had been presented to Vice President Kembo Mohadi in compliance with instructions from President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
“We now await the decision of the President and further instructions thereto”, said Volta Ekem Moyo the ZIPRA/NITRAM Board Chairperson, when he addressed journalists in Bulawayo recently.
Moyo confirmed that the board is receiving reports with allegations of some of the properties having been sold. “We have been receiving accusations implying that we may have sold some of these properties. There is no grain of truth whatsoever in those accusations,” Moyo said the reports were the work of detractors trying to saw seeds of division among the ZIPRA war veterans.
Moyo however later said those who may have sold any of the properties would be subjected to the due process of the law.
Commenting on the report, a war veteran who spoke on condition of anonymity said the board erred by going to the media before they reported back to stakeholders on progress they had made.
“An emergency stakeholders meeting will soon be held in Bulawayo, where we expect the board to report on the progress they have made so far. We however wonder why they decided to rush to the press before briefing us,” said the source.
The issue of the return of the ZIPRA properties has been on the table from the period just after the signing of the 1987 Unity Accord between ZANU PF and PF ZAPU. Some people are now questioning whether the properties will ever be returned considering that a big proportion of the fighters who contributed towards the acquisition of the properties are now late.
Moyo said compilation of the properties by his board is an ongoing process. “So far we have compiled a hundred properties and we are still identifying more properties.”
The ZIPRA/NITRAM board was established in 2022 to work out the modalities of the release of the properties.
At independence in 1980, then PF ZAPU leader, Dr Joshua Nkomo mobilised former ZIPRA combatants to contribute $50 each to acquire Nitram Investments Holdings, which purchased a number of farms and buildings.