Chiefs Demand Preferential Treatment Under The Command Livestock Programme

By Vumani Mthiyane

Gwanda – Chiefs here have demanded that they be the first beneficiaries of the government funded Command Livestock Programme because of their position in their communities.

Speaking during the launch of the programme at the Gwanda agricultural showground, Chief Khulumani Mathema said they should be involved in selecting the beneficiaries because as traditional leaders they were in charge of their communities.

“I think it is important that chiefs are drafted into these committees that distribute the livestock so that we are not left out,” he said directing the statement to Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, Perence Shiri.

Shiri, however, said there were some social welfare programmes that required leadership of the chiefs and others which did not.

One of the people who attended the meeting urged the government to stop pampering chiefs at the expense of suffering communities. He said the chiefs had recently received expensive all-terrain vehicles at a time when most Zimbabweans were struggling to make ends meet. He also noted that the chiefs had not been satisfied by being given cars and had demanded that the government build them mansions because their cars were too classy to be parked next to their thatched huts.

Zimbabwe has a shortage of foreign currency, has no essential drugs in healthcare centres or ambulances to ferry the sick.