By A Correspondent-The country’s longest-serving civil servant Mariyawanda Nzuwa has died.Dzuwa was the former Public Service Commission (PSC) chairperson.

Below is President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s condolence message , following the death of Dr Mariyawanda Nzuwah.

The death this morning of our former Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Dr Mariyawanda Nzuwah, has dealt a great blow to our Nation which has been robbed of a long-serving civil servant, very dedicated and loyal to his country. 

An eminent academic, Dr Nzuwah’s early scholarly works were in nationalist research in support of the liberation struggle. As a committed cadre, he placed his professional skills and career at the disposal of the struggle and his country soon after the attainment of our Independence. Hence, together with the likes of fellow academic contemporaries in the mould of the late national heroes Dr Tichaona Jokonya, Dr Charles Utete, the current Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda, and many others, were reassigned from the University of Zimbabwe to throw their weight behind public service. That made them a rare crop of leaders in the civil service. The late Dr Nzuwah will be remembered in the annuls of our Bureaucracy as the first indigenous person to Chair the Public Service Commission making him a longest-serving member or the Commission to date. He distinguished himself by ably superintending over the transformation of our Civil Service from a colonial bureaucracy serving minority interests to placing it at the service of the majority of our people in a post-Independent Zimbabwe. 

On behalf of the eating Party, ZANU-PF, Government, my family, and on my own behalf, I express deep sorrow and grief to the Nzuwah family, especially to Mrs Nzuwah and the children who have lost a devoted husband, loving father and guardian. May they take comfort from the knowledge that the Nation joins them in mourning his loss.

May his soul rest in eternal peace. 

E.D Mnangagwa PRESIDENT 21/09/21