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Herald Reporter
Former Defence secretary and first vice chancellor of Bindura University of Science Education Dr James Chitauro has died. He died at St Annes Hospital in Harare on April 7 after a short illness. Family spokesperson Cde Bright Matonga said Dr Chitauro would be buried at Warren Hills Cemetery in Harare tomorrow. “Dr Chitauro died at St Annes on Monday evening after a short illness,” he said.

“Mourners are gathered at Number 34 Sunriver Manors Borrowdale Brooke in Harare and he will be buried at Warren Hills Cemetery tomorrow.”
Dr Chitauro was born in Mhondoro Ngezi in 1935 and grew up in Chikomba.

In the 1960s he enrolled at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom where he graduated with a Masters Degree in Computer Sciences.
In 1979, Dr Chitauro was a Mathematics lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.  He had earlier served as a senior scientific officer in the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
Soon after independence, he was appointed deputy secretary in the ministry of Transport after which he became the secretary of Defence.

Dr Chitauro also served as permanent secretary in the ministries of Higher and Tertiary Education and Labour and Social Welfare. He was appointed the first vice chancellor for Bindura University of Science Education. Dr Chitauro also served as board chairman  for  the Zimbabwe Broadcasting  Corporation and vice chairman  of the City of Harare Commission. At one point he was appointed as board member of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

In 2000 he went to Australia to join his wife Florence who had then been appointed Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Canberra. Dr Chitauro is survived by his wife Florence and four children.