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Nqobile Tshili Bulawayo Bureau
President Mugabe’s meeting with war veterans will be held any time this year after the alignment of laws that have to do with matters affecting freedom fighters with the Constitution, a Cabinet minister has said. In an interview yesterday, the Minister of War Veterans, War Collaborators, Former Political Detainees and Restrictees, Retired Colonel Tshinga Dube, said constitutional amendments would take precedence.

He said the meeting was supposed to be held once a year, not necessarily every April, but any month.

Minister Dube said there were many issues that affected war veterans that needed to be addressed prior to their meeting with their patron.

“Alignment of laws to the Constitution is one things that has been holding us back,” he said. “Because we are keen to make sure that these collaborators, the cadres and all other groups, those who were war victims, are covered in the Constitution.

“The laws were put in the Constitution, but there hasn’t been an alignment exercise of the laws to the Constitution.”

Minister Dube said his ministry was already planning for the meeting between war veterans and President Mugabe after the alignment of the laws.

“They (laws) have to go to Parliament and we are working on that at Cabinet stage,” he said.

“So, I think they should go through Parliament before the great indaba.

“So, by the time we meet up with the President, we hope to have finalised all these issues.”

Minister Dube said once that had been done, the President’s Office would give them a date when to hold the meeting.

“It doesn’t have to be April all the time, in May or June, but once a year the President promised to meet with war veterans,” he said. “We are already working, preparing for the meeting, but we don’t have the set date yet.”