adminPost Correspondent
TRADITIONAL leaders should desist from establishing traditional leadership structures in resettlement areas before they are gazetted, Minister of Rural Development, Promotion and Preservation of National Culture and Heritage, Cde Abednico Ncube, has said.
Addressing chiefs from all districts in Manicaland at a chiefs’ workshop held at a local hotel on Wednesday, Cde Ncube, said traditional leaders would only do so when the ministry was done on drafting the emplacement process countrywide as well as the alignment of the Traditional Leaders’ Act to the new constitution.
Cde Ncube implored the chiefs to maintain peace amid revelations that some of them were creating “paramount chieftainship”.
“I am advised that some chiefs are claiming to be above others, what is called ‘paramount chiefs’. Let me emphasise that we do not have paramount chiefs in the independent Zimbabwe. It was a colonial practice which has no place in our society. Our supreme law does not provide for such a status as chiefs are equal,” he said.
He added: “As we conclude the Land Reform Programme, it is essential that governance matters within resettlement areas, consistent with Section 29 of the Traditional Leaders Act (Chapter 29:17) be enhanced. Some remarkable progress, to this effect, has so far been registered and the ministry therefore will be seized with gazetting these arrangements in order to enhance the functionality of Traditional Leadership systems in resettlement areas.
“As we wait for the finalisation of the programme, I would like to appeal to you chiefs to avoid establishing traditional leadership structures in resettlement areas before the area is gazetted. The establishment of traditional structures in ungazzetted areas is illegal,” he said.
Following reports of incessant fights and disputes over chieftainship, Cde Ncube said he had instructed officials in his ministry to be thorough when superintending over the selection of traditional leaders saying it would to a greater extent minimise and mitigate chieftainship succession disputes.
Speaking at the same event which was organised by Zimbabwe Association of Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO), Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs, Cde Mandi Chimene urged chiefs to respect the law and abide by the constitution in their day-to-day operation or risk being arrested.
“You are no exception. You should respect the law and abide by the constitution. You should learn to behave and always be on the right side of the law otherwise the police will not hesitate to arrest you. You need to be exemplary and lead by example and desist from being newsmakers and regulars at courts,” she said.
Zimbabwe Chief’s Council president, Chief Fortune Charumbira, said despite financial constraints bedeviling the country, it was paramount for chiefs to hold workshops regularly and discuss issues affecting their operations.
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