Did war veterans sacrifice everything only to be paupers in the country they liberated?

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

As Zimbabwe prepares to gather in Maphisa for the 46^th Independence Day celebrations, the air is thick with the familiar, staged pageantry of the “Second Republic.”

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We are told to celebrate “Unity and Development Towards Vision 2030,” a slogan that increasingly sounds like a distant, hollow promise to those who actually paid the price for the flag that flies above us.

The centerpiece of this year’s festivities is the handover of houses built under the Presidential War Veterans Housing Scheme.

On the surface, it is framed as an act of profound gratitude.

In reality, it is a staggering insult to the very soul of the liberation struggle.

There is something deeply perverse about a nation that forces its founding liberators to queue like paupers for handouts while the children of the elite—many of whom were not even a thought in their parents’ minds during the grueling bush war—flaunt wealth that would make a monarch blush.

These men and women, the veterans of our independence, gave up their youth, their education, and their physical well-being in the 1970s.

They endured the hunger, the disease, and the constant shadow of death in the forests and mountains of this region.

They did not do so with the expectation of becoming millionaires, but they certainly did not fight so that their reward, nearly half a century later, would be a paltry “scheme” that provides a few hundred houses while thousands of their comrades languish in abject squalor.

To see a veteran who survived the horrors of the liberation war now being “gifted” a borehole or a small brick house as if it were a supreme act of charity is a national embarrassment.

It suggests that their sacrifice has a price tag, and a surprisingly low one at that.

The irony is made all the more bitter by the identity of those presiding over this “generosity.”

Today, Zimbabwe is dominated by a class of “tenderpreneurs” whose primary qualification for wealth is not ingenuity, hard work, or even military service, but a calculated proximity to the centers of power.

While veterans struggle to pay for basic medication or transport, we see a new generation of political insiders living in absolute opulence.

These individuals, many of whom have never known a day of true hardship, occupy multi-million-dollar mansions, fly across the globe in private jets, and provide their children with “pocket money” for international shopping sprees that exceed the annual pension of a thousand war veterans combined.

The mechanism for this transfer of national wealth is the dubious public tender system, a shadowy world where contracts are awarded to a select few with the right connections.

A prime example is the Prevail Group, owned by Paul Tungwarara, who occupies the convenient role of Presidential Adviser on Investment.

His company has been at the forefront of these “Presidential” schemes, from borehole drilling to the very housing projects being touted in Maphisa.

It is a closed loop of patronage where the same people who advise the presidency are the ones awarded multi-million-dollar contracts to “save” the poor.

However, the “saving” appears to be largely theatrical.

Reports from parliamentary committees have already painted a damning picture of stalled projects and non-functional boreholes despite massive sums of public money being disbursed.

There are allegations that millions of dollars were paid for work that remains incomplete.

In the borehole scheme alone, some figures suggest the government was charged upwards of $16,000 per unit, nearly triple the market rate.

This is not service delivery; it is a systematic looting of the state under the guise of welfare.

The logistics of the housing scheme itself are a mathematical absurdity.

The current plan aims to build 100 houses per province.

Even if we were to believe the government’s highly suspicious and improbable figure of 50,000 surviving war veterans—a number that seems to miraculously grow even as these men and women pass away daily—at the current pace of construction, it would take centuries to house them all.

The cruel reality is that these veterans are dying one by one, every single day.

They are being outpaced by time, neglected by the state, and outmaneuvered by a predatory elite that is more interested in the 2030 political calendar than the dignity of the 1980 generation.

We must ask ourselves if this is truly what was envisioned in the camps of Chimoio or Nyadzonia.

Did those young men and women leave their families and place their lives in the line of fire so that forty-six years later, they would be reduced to political props in a Maphisa stadium?

The “handout culture” currently being weaponized by the state is a calculated move to ensure dependency.

By keeping the veterans poor and then offering them scraps, the ruling elite ensures a loyal, if weary, vanguard for their political maneuvers, including the current push to extend presidential terms.

This term extension bid is not about national stability; it is about protecting the “looting rights” of those who have turned the Zimbabwean treasury into a private piggy bank.

While the elite builds mansions across the world, the veteran who lost a limb or a decade of his life is told to be grateful for a solar-powered borehole that may or may not work next month.

This is a betrayal of the highest order.

It is an inversion of the liberation ethos where the “people” were supposed to be the masters of their own destiny.

Instead, we have created a two-tier society—one for the looters who feast on public tenders and another for the rest of Zimbabwe, including the veterans, who are left to fight over the crumbs that fall from the high table.

The lavish lifestyles of the “born-free” elite, funded by dubious contracts like those awarded to Prevail Group, stand as a monuments to our failed moral compass.

When a daughter of the elite can spend thousands of dollars on a whim while a veteran of the Second Chimurenga cannot afford a bag of mealie-meal, the revolution has not only been televised; it has been auctioned to the highest bidder.

Maphisa should not be a place of hollow celebration this April; it should be a place of national reflection and atonement.

We owe our veterans more than a house and a handout.

We owe them the country they actually fought for—a country where wealth is earned, power is accountable, and no one is so poor that they must thank their leaders for a basic human right.

Until that day comes, the 46^th Independence Day is merely a reminder of how far we have wandered from the path of true liberation.

● Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08