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Charles T M J Dube Correspondent
WE buried my friend and namesake last Friday. At body-viewing he looked so much at peace with himself and his creator.

The atmosphere was serene and a sharp contrast to the violent death.

Pastors did not grope for words to describe him and were too sure friends and relatives had to pick a leaf from his template to meet him in the afterlife where he has gone to join his creator.

I was happy to have shared the moment as I joined chess players who often converged at his house Friday nights till am playing chess, as we carried his body to the hearse, a reminder that my friend was gone, like will happen to us all.

He failed to teach me chess during our lunch breaks in the Treasury, I preferred draughts which uses the same board and did not have the patience to learn about pawns, king, queen, bishop, knights and all with different movements so ended up using his board for draughts.

Then Saturday mornings it was table tennis at the then El Grey 1 Building, now Mukwati. We were both good laughers. Charles would stop whatever he was doing for a haughty five-minute laugh.

When I joined Treasury in 1983 as an assistant secretary after the merger of Finance and Economic Planning ministries, his corridor was by the corner while my office was at the beginning of the other, and so you can imagine the echoes from our vibrant laughter.

It became worse when I moved to Financial Administration and Government Accounting Systems and our offices were now next door.

I was now at the heart of the Treasury and being introduced to it by friends like him was a joy and pleasure.

My move to the then Treasury side of the now combined ministry in a purely accounting position came as a surprise to many on that side as they just knew the economist in me.

Economic Planning had been under Dr Bernard Chidzero, with the professional staff complement largely comprised of returnees may be up to 90 percent who were largely erudite confident go-getters as it were.

On the other hand, Finance under Enos Nkala as Minister was largely for locally-trained professionals and Mike Ndudzo and Charles Kuwaza were probably a special head hunt for local content from the Ministry of Trade and Commerce to match their Economic Planning externally trained counterparts and in that role they acquitted themselves brilliantly, rising fast through the promotional ladder. I quickly made friends with both of them as a symbiotic relationship was definitely going to be part of my professional survival especially given that inasmuch as Aid Accounting and Monitoring function was a purely financial matter, an appreciation of Government Accounting systems was highly essentially as the National Development Fund resources would need to be transmitted to ministries through the Vote of Credit and it was the same ministries staff executives who would be generating and feeding me with my Donor expenditure returns.

Besides, I could only appreciate how Government accounting worked from these two guys and of that they did an excellent job such that I could with the help of my training in auditing and accounting think outside the box on advising parastatals and Government departments on how they could get around compiling and fulfilling differing foreign assistance reporting requirements. They were already Under Secretaries while I was an Assistant Secretary.

During my stint in the Aid Accounting and Monitoring Section I used to receive 70 to 100 calls a day during which at the end of the line there could be somebody making some heavy breathing or other funny sounds.

Everyone in the ministry including Charles were aware of my predicament and could only sympathise, although I simply ignored and moved on with my work especially when eventually I could tell the ringing tone of these hoax calls as we eventually called them in the ministry.

My conclusion was this was on account of my firmness as I was too uncompromising. It is only when these hoax calls became too taxing and the fighting threads were increasing that on reflection I decided to change departments and Charles invited me to his department although he was to be promoted to Deputy Secretary in Ministry of Defence soon thereafter with Mike being made Deputy Secretary for Financial Administration.

Those who knew my professional zeal were promising me boredom by making this move to head the Government Accounting Systems section which was more to do with oversight on Government internal check and control systems, but I must admit, it was one of the most exciting moments in my career.

By the time I left for postgraduate studies, after having made a revamp of the Treasury and Accounting Officers Instructions, I was already contemplating introducing Operational research in the Government budgetary process.

It was during this brief stint that I sat on the Government Tender Board, but wrote the rules invariably acting as alternate chairman.

Charles was now a Permanent Secretary in the President’s Office when the hoax man was finally caught around 1995 as these calls had now translated to my home and were coming in the weird hours of the morning with the victims net now including my friend and now Minister Cain Mathema and some other guy who worked for the Railways, and alas, the perpetrator was a Director in the President’s Office.

When the story appeared in The Herald the very morning after his appearance in court, I made it a point I would pass through Charles’ office and his remark was, “So the hoax man has been caught, I will fix him.”

And sure enough, as the establishment officer in the President’s Office, the man was history and on the streets a few days later. During his public service career, Charles also became Permanent Secretary for Defence and Senior Secretary for Finance.

With his last two appointments coming after a stint in the President’s Office, I am 100 percent sure that these appointments as Senior Secretary for Finance and eventually Chairman for the State Procurement Board by the President were on account of his firmness and no nonsense cha

I can bet my last dollar that as Permanent Secretary in charge of Finance and Administration he should have invariably confronted him over some unreturned expenditure vouchers after some trip, whether by some senior civil servant trying to take cover from him or even by his own private secretary.

After all we used to do it together with rogue ministers and senior civil servants trying not to comply with financial discipline. That was the kind of character and he probably did that with a bit of a laugh typical of him.

As a friend, I have my democratic right to my own prejudices, but as a genuine friend I did confront him on his alleged misdemeanours and invariably he had a satisfying response and further informed me of other attempts at getting him, which invariably coincided with the President’s absence.

Even on the latest debacle, he assured me his principal was not convinced, but wanted due process to take place and let the dust settle before things would get back to normal.

As we all know, that eventually never got to pass.

Apparently in his last six weeks or so he was too serious with the things of the Lord and his favourite song which he sang so often if not every day was from the Anglican hymnal and depending on how generous a mood my editor will be, he could publish it all or in part: Mazuva Ese Egore:

1. Mubatsiri wedu,

Mwari

Tariro yeduzve,

Mudziwiriri munhamo,

Chivimbo narini.

 

2. Pasi peChigaro chako

Vatsvene vakotsa,

Ruoko rwako rwokwana

Kutidzivirira.

 

3. Zvese zvisati zvavapo

Makomo nepasi,

Iwe wakanga uripo

Mugari narini.

 

4. Misi mizhinji kunewe

Inenge kanguva,

Senguva yorungwanani

Kusati kwaedza.

 

5. Nguva inokunguruka,

Musi nomusizve,

Zvichikanganikwa zvese,

Sokurota hope.

 

6. Mubatsiri wedu, Mwari,

Tariro yeduzve,

Mudziviriri munhamo

Chivimbo narini.

MHSRIP
That is the end of us all. It is just a matter of how and when, and in all that, God has a say and will have allowed it to happen that way, which in itself is a great consolation.