Welshman Ncube

On 14 July at around 1.30 pm, Prof Ncube met his wife in Bulawayo’s central business district and ordered her to get into his car so that he could drive to her house in Bulawayo’s Morningside suburb where they intended to resolve an undisclosed important issue.

Along the way, Prof Ncube diverted from the route and drove to his house in Hillside. On arrival at his house, Prof Ncube allegedly ordered the complainant to disembark from the car but she refused.

He got angry and pulled her from the car before allegedly dragging her towards the house. During the alleged scuffle, Ms Gumede’s wristwatch was damaged. Gumede tried to escape, but Prof Ncube blocked her before allegedly slapping her on the cheek.

Gumede left the house and when she was by the gate, Prof Ncube followed her and gave her a handbag and a shoe, which she had left in the car while being dragged out. She reported the matter to the police leading to Prof Ncube’s arrest. Gumede was referred to the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) for medical examination but she did not go.
The matter was taken to court where Gumede opted to withdraw the charges against Welshman Ncube.^[4]
Relationship: with Henrietta Rushwaya Documents obtained from ZIFA by The Herald in 2011 showed that Henrietta Rushwaya and Welshman Ncube travelled together to and from Johannesburg on three occasions inside 11 days (between June 29 and July 9 2010) during the global football tournament. The documents further showed that earlier Prof Ncube had travelled to Johannesburg with Rushwaya, purportedly on the ZIFA account.
Rushwaya made the flight reservations on all five occasions, raising speculation on the nature of her relationship with Ncube, who at the time was the Minister of Industry and Commerce.
ZIFA received an invoice from travel agent Led Travel & Tours indicating that Rushwaya was indebted to the tune of nearly US$9 000 for flights made during the World Cup period. The invoice was delivered on 15 July just 12 days before the ZIFA board suspended Rushwaya on allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
Rushwaya was subsequently fired on 26 October 2010 after a disciplinary tribunal ruled that she be dismissed for mismanagement and insubordination.
Rushwaya declined to disclose the nature of her relationship with Prof Ncube, saying:

"All I can say is that we were working together on programmes related to the World Cup. In any event, Prof Ncube only travelled twice to South Africa during the period you are referring to although I had made several bookings. I think this was because of various other commitments he had at the time."

She, however, would not elaborate on what programmes the two were working on outside the jurisdiction of the relevant Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture. Investigations by The Herald also showed that two days before the World Cup final match between the Netherlands and eventual champions Spain, Rushwaya also booked a return ticket to Johannesburg on behalf of Prof Ncube, presumably for the politician to watch the historic match. She then went on to book two more return tickets for herself and a local sports journalist with whom she apparently travelled to South Africa on the eve of the match. ^[5]

School/Education

He holds a Bachelor of Law (BL), Bachelor of Laws (BLL) and a Master of Philosophy degrees all from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ).

Service/Career

His academic prowess prompted him to join the MDC at its formation in 1999 becoming its first secretary general in the same year. He was in 2011 elected unopposed as the MDC president after the expiry of the term of Arthur Mutambara.^[6] Ncube was in 2000 voted as the Bulawayo North East member of parliament. His major success in politics however came in 2009 when he was appointed the Industry and Commerce minister during the Government of National Unity (GNU).

In the 2000 Elections, (see A History of Zimbabwean Elections) Bulawayo North East returned to Parliament:

• Welshman Ncube of MDC with 21 100 votes,
• Joshua Malinga of Zanu PF with 2 864 votes,
• Sikhumbuzo Ncube of ZAPU with 227 votes,
• Arnold Payne, Independent, with 87 votes,
• Eliakimo Ncube of Liberty Party with 37 votes.

Positions Held

• Secretary General of the Movement for Democratic Change (1999 -2005)
• Law Professor at the University of Zimbabwe (1992–present)
• High Court & Supreme Courts Advocate
• Member of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
• Chairman of Parliamentary Legal Committee
• Advisory Board Member of Zimbabwe Human Rights Association
• Lecturer in the Faculty of Law department- University of Zimbabwe (1986 - 1992)
• Spokesperson of the National Constitutional Assembly

Events

Breaking off from MDC in 2005

In 2005 there was disagreement within the MDC leadership on whether the party was supposed to participate in Senate elections scheduled for November 26. The matter was put to a vote of the National Executive Council and the outcome 33:31 in favour of participating. Party leader Morgan Tsvangirai however disagreed and insisted that the party was not supposed to participate, effectively overruling the National Council's vote outcome.

A group led by then Party Vice President Gibson Sibanda decided to split from the main party led by Tsvangirai. Ncube was part of the group along with MDC Deputy Secretary General Gift Chimanikire, party treasurer Fletcher Dulini Ncube, and spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi.

Ncube's group retained the name MDC and participated in elections as a separate party onward. Tsvangirai's faction assumed the name MDC-T (for Tsvangirai)even though they insisted they were the original MDC. There were suggestions at that time that the split was also on ethnic lines as most of the pro-senate elections participation group was from Matabeleland

In a 2011 interview with NewsDay, Ncube said he regretted the split:

“The split of the MDC, in my entire life, my 50 years by July this year, is something that hurts me the most. The most painful and hurtful period in my life was October 2005 to February 2006, the period of the split. No other period in my life have I suffered more pain, more hurt and more agony. It’s something I reflect on regularly and ask if we could have done things differently if there could there have been another outcome. I regret the split of the MDC daily, but I take heart in that if the situation that we were in was to present itself again, I would take the same route.”

CBZ lawsuit

CBZ Bank took Welshman Ncube to court seeking an order compelling him to settle a $100 000 loan advanced to him in January 2010. ^[7]

Forming the MDC Alliance

In August 2017 the MDC formed an alliance with the MDC-T along with 6 other parties some of which had also broken away from the main MDC-T. The parties came together under the name MDC Alliance and were mostly motivated by their perceived need of a coalition to contest the July 2018 elections.

MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai died in February 2018 of cancer and the party's presidency was controversially assumed by one of the vice presidents, Nelson Chamisa. After the elections in 2018, the party decided to just refer to itself as the MDC.

Election to MDC Vice Presidency - 2019

At the first MDC Congress in May 2019 since the merger of the different groups, Welshman Ncube was elected the one of the party's 3 vice presidents. The others being Tendai Biti and Lynette Karenyi.

Mutapa Investment Fund

Another opinion says the Mutapa Investment Fund is a fiasco.

President Mnangagwa’s use of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures Act) to rename the Sovereign Wealth Fund to Mutapa Investment Fund and to transfer shareholding of 20 state-owned companies was done without the involvement of Parliament and therefore exposes the entities to looting.

The article lists comments from Tendai Biti, Nigel Chanakira, Tony Hawkins, Gift Mugano, Welshman Ncube and Victor Nyoni. They have criticized the move as:

• outside the President’s power’s’
• enabling the movement outside the country of foreign currency without oversight’ (allows money-laundering),
• based on misinformation that Zimbabwe has a budget surplus when public debt had increasing to $144 trillion’, “The inclusion of loss-making parastatals is just one more attempt to hide public finances from parliamentary scrutiny and pretend the national budget is in surplus when it is not,”
• usurping state assets and taking them from the state, because the government owns these parastatals and now Mutapa Investment Fund now owns them temporarily - particularly the government which does not have a clean record of transactions,
• government has never understood the role of a sovereign wealth fund - to use domestic surpluses from extractive industries like mining, which are depleting national wealth to diversify the economy. Away from dependence on a handful of mineral exports and tobacco. ^[8]

References