Soldiers barred from retiring

By Lance Guma
16 September 2005

The Zimbabwe National Army has issued a directive blocking all retirements until after the 2008 presidential election. A colonel in the army told Newsreel his application for retirement was blocked, even though he has reached the 20 year service ceiling for employment in the army. The other criteria is that upon reaching the age of fifty you are allowed to quit the army. That in principle is how the army structures its contracts.

Whatever is happening in the upper echelons of power has forced a rethink. Retired Army Colonel Essau Sibanda says Mugabe does not trust the young soldiers to fill the shoes of the senior officials. The army is dominated by veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war and most of these are trusted by the ruling party. Colonel Sibanda senses a desire by the government to hang on to the soldiers it trusts, rather than to make way for new blood.

A few days back we reported how a crippling food crisis has led to junior army officers being sent home from barracks following the army's failure to feed them. The police force and the prison service have also been badly affected. The move has proved unpopular with some of the soldiers who live far from the barracks and have to face transport nightmares due to the current fuel crisis.