Staff Reporter

The late Zanu-PF Politburo member Simon Khaya Moyo who succumbed to cancer on Sunday at Mater Dei Hospital in Bulawayo, has been declared a national hero.

Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration Dr Obert Mpofu announced the news to the Moyo family today at their residence in Hillside suburb in Bulawayo.

Dr Mpofu revealed that the ruling party unanimously agreed that Cde Khaya Moyo’s contributions in liberating Zimbabwe befit a national hero.

Cde Khaya Moyo joined the nationalist movement in 1968 as a member of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU).

He left the country in 1968 for Zambia, where ZAPU senior officials agreed to send him to school. He enrolled at the University of Zambia and in 1969 graduated with a Diploma in Social Sciences.

He received military training in Russia and Cuba and attended the Geneva and Lancaster conference, which resulted in Lancaster House Agreement together with the late Joshua Nkomo.

In 1980, he became an assistant secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and in 1983, he was appointed to be undersecretary in the Ministry of Justice. In 1989, he was elected to be a member of the Zanu-PF Central Committee.

At the time of his death Cde Khaya Moyo was Zanu-PF’s Spokesperson.