HARARE – Former Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services Commissioner General Paradzai Zimondi died from Covid-19 late on Friday, joining a growing list of serving and former government bureaucrats to succumb to the respiratory disease.
Zimondi, 73, died on the same day as transport minister Biggie Matiza and former education minister Aeneas Chigwedere.
Foreign affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo also died this week
Several ruling Zanu PF officials are also said to be down with the disease, amid concern Zimbabwe’s hospitals are getting increasingly overwhelmed by coronavirus cases despite insistence to the contrary by the government.
“With compatriots dropping like flies, it’s shocking that the regime has no plan or program for Covid vaccines,” tweeted MDC Alliance vice president Tendai Biti following Friday’s high-profile multiple fatalities.
“Insanely the 2021 budget failed to provide any funds for vaccine purchases. So Zimbabwe suffers from misgovernance. Other countries face pandemics. Zimbabwe faces a plan-demic.”
Presidential spokesperson George Charamba also expressed shock at the avalanche of sad news, tweeting: “It never rains; it pours. Ndarwadziwa! (I’m pained).
Zimbabwe is currently in the throes of the pandemic with 45 deaths and 476 new infections reported Friday, bringing the country’s caseload to 30,523. Fatalities jumped to 962.
Zimondi was retired by President Emmerson Mnangagwa last year at the recommendation of the Public Service Commission (PSC) after 22 years of service.
As one of Zimbabwe’s top security chiefs, he played an active role in propping Zanu PF while undermining the opposition MDC, ordering prison officers to vote for the ruling party and the late then-president Robert Mugabe.
