President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Sunday warned against the propensity by some people to abuse their proximity to high ranking officials to seek favours and benefits.
Mnangagwa was speaking at the burial of Major General (Rtd) Clever Shadreck Chiramba at the National Heroes Acre in Harare on Sunday. He said:
We have lost a selfless team player and a true revolutionary cadre. He was also a God-fearing man. Chiramba remained astute, versatile and a responsible cadre who served for and looked after strategic armaments in the fight for our revolution.
Although he trained and deputised commanders who occupied high positions, he never claimed such associations to be a right to access privileges or benefits.
Under the Second Republic, proximity or relations with those holding public positions should never be a basis whatsoever to access favours or benefits.
At one time, Chiramba was deputy to now Vice President Constantino Chiwenga who was the commander of the Five Brigade in Gweru in the 1980s.
Last year, ZANU PF Secretary for Finance, who was Acting Secretary for Information and Publicity, Patrick Chinamasa, described “name dropping” as a disease. He said:
Name dropping – it’s a disease. The ZANU PF revolutionary party is declaring war on name droppers.
Here at ZANU PF, we have fired some of these name droppers, conmen and con-women who abuse the name of the party leadership.
They allege they are relatives of senior leaders and go about conning people in the name of our leadership. That should stop forthwith.
At the time, Chinamasa also criticised Mnangagwa’s relatives for attempting to influence and interfere with the president’s duties.