ZANU PF founding member Enos Nkala yesterday said no one from the party had visited him to check his health two months after he was released from hospital.
REPORT BY NDUDUZO TSHUMA
A visibly sick Nkala is currently recuperating at his Woodlands home in Bulawayo. His hospital bed became a hive of activity as Zanu PF officials stampeded to visit him at Mater Dei Hospital following reports that he had received a telephone call from President Robert Mugabe inquiring about his health.
Nkala yesterday told NewsDay he had not heard from Mugabe or Zanu PF officials since his release from hospital.
The outspoken politician, who was frozen out of politics in the 1980s after he was implicated in the Willowgate scandal, returned to the limelight last year when he had a private meeting with Mugabe in Bulawayo.
There were rumours that efforts were being made to bring him back in the party.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Obert Mpofu, who called Mugabe to inform him about Nkala’s hospitalisation, had undertaken to pay the former minister’s medical bills. Asked if Mugabe had made any follow up on his health, Nkala said: “No he did not.”
He said none of the Zanu PF politicians he worked with in government had made contact with him since his departure from government in the early 1990s.
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“I don’t want to tell lies, when we meet we talk, but I have no recollection of them phoning or visiting me,” he said.
Nkala said some Zanu PF politicians only called him when he was hospitalised checking on his health, but none had visited him either in hospital or after he was discharged.
Nkala said he had no hard feelings against Mpofu, who is credited for exposing the Willowgate scandal that prematurely ended the former Home Affairs minister’s career.
“I did not hold anything against him, we talk, let me say we are on talking terms,” he said.
“We have never been very close because he is young and I am old so the age difference makes it difficult for us to strike a friendship.”
Nkala is one of the founding members of Zanu PF. (More on Nkala’s exclusive interview in tomorrow’s paper)
