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Herald Reporter
War veterans demonstrated against senior officials in the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association in Harare on Tuesday, accusing them of misappropriating about US$6 million meant for their children’s school fees. A group of war veterans matched along Nelson Mandela Avenue until they reached their Linquenda House destination demanding an explanation from ZNLWA director Cde Richard Ruwodo of what became of the funds. However, Cde Ruwodo was not available at Linquenda House.  The war veterans alleged the Ministry of Finance disbursed enough money to cater for their children’s education, which they alleged was abused.

“Money was released from the Ministry but surprisingly, our children are being turned away from their respective schools due to unpaid fees. We spoke to the relevant people within the Ministry of Finance and we were told that enough money had been released towards the tuition for our children in all the 10 provinces,” said one disgruntled war veteran who refused to be named.

War veterans said that was not the first time they experienced delays in the payment of the children’s school fees, urging authorities to intervene.

The war veterans believe the money was being misused at the expense of the children’s education resulting in interruption of studies as well as strained relations with school officials.

“Right now some of our children are writing end-of-year examinations and the school authorities are demanding payment of fees that we expect should have been paid up by now”.

Mr Ruwondo yesterday denied the allegations.
“There is a batch that has not yet been released by the Government and we have scheduled a meeting with Treasury to make a request for these funds. All these are just assumptions from these people (demonstrators) and efforts are being made to set the record straight,” he said.
ZNLWA chairman Cde Jabulani Sibanda, yesterday confirmed there were problems regarding the payment of school fees for war veterans’ children as disbursement of funds was always delayed.

“I am yet to get the facts about the current situation but I can confirm that there have been on-going problems. I am going to talk to the administrators of the money and ministry officials to get to the bottom of the matter,” he said.