Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
TSHOLOTSHO South legislator and Zanu-PF Central Committee member Cde Zenzo Sibanda, who succumbed to Covid-19 on Wednesday, has been declared a liberation hero.
Cde Sibanda (50) will be buried in Bhubhude under Chief Gampu, in Tsholotsho on Sunday.
In a statement, Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration Cde Obert Mpofu said President Mnangagwa conferred liberation hero status to Cde Sibanda.
“His Excellency, the President and First Secretary of Zanu-PF Cde Mnangagwa has conferred a liberation hero status to the late Cde Zenzo Sibanda who died on 11 August 2021 and will be buried at Bhubhude village, Chief Gampu, Tsholotsho,” said Cde Mpofu.
Cde Sibanda (50), who was also Zanu-PF Matabeleland North Secretary for Transport and Welfare, died at United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH), where he had been admitted and put-on oxygen support after he tested Covid-19 positive.
He was a registered traditional healer and well-known in Tsholotsho.
Cde Sibanda was born in Mberengwa where he did his primary education before moving to Gwanda where he stayed with his mother after the arrest of his father by the settler regime.
When schools were closed at the height of the liberation war in 1978, Cde Sibanda, as a small boy, fled from home and joined his brothers at Dukwe refugee camp in Botswana where he remained until ceasefire when he returned to Gwanda.
He continued with his education after independence before working as a bakery attendant in Chegutu between 1987 and 1989.
Between 1990 and 1992 he was employed as a security guard and that is the time he relocated to Tsholotsho where his aunt was staying.
Cde Sibanda was elected district youth chairman for Tsholotsho in 1996 and was secretary for production and labour between 1998 and 2000.
Between 2001 and 2005 he worked as ward development officer for Ward 17 in Tsholotsho in the Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation.
Cde Sibanda was elected as an executive member for the Zanu-PF Youth League in Matabeleland North in 2003 before being elevated to Secretary for Administration.
He was Zanu-PF candidate for Tsholotsho South in the 2008 harmonised election which was won by the MDC, but he won the election in 2013 and retained the seat in the 2018 elections.
In 2012, Cde Sibanda was elected Matabeleland North provincial secretary for transport and welfare, a position he held until the time of his death.
He was elected into the Central Committee in 2014.
He is survived by 10 children and a wife.
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