BEITBRIDGE Municipality has decided to honour Vice-President Kembo Mohadi by creating a square in the central business district that will be named after him.
The Mohadi Square, or KCD Square, as it will be known, will be the parking space between Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Street east of where that road intersects with the Emmerson Mnangagwa Road.
It will rise from the edge of the old police station and watchtower straddling about 30 metres on both sides of Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Street, stretching for about 80 metres to the present site of Beitbridge Rural District Council offices and the National Railways of Zimbabwe Pension Fund building.
A proposal for a statue of Mohadi will be put before council to erect a statue on a suitable site to overlook his square.
“This is primarily to celebrate Vice-President Mohadi’s legacy. His figure is an integral part of Beitbridge’s history as a town. You may be aware that he also worked for this same local authority in early Zimbabwe,” town clerk Loud Ramakgapola told NewsDay Weekender yesterday.
“I have already spoken to him hinting on our plan as a town. This is to ensure his life is celebrated as one of the biggest political figures to emerge from our town and district. Obviously his statue will ensure his life is visible to generations even long after our lives.”
Businessman Beji Muleya said had Beitbridge not been built haphazardly, Mohadi statue would be fitting right in the centre of town.
“As it is, our town was built haphazardly. Such (a statue) needs to be put in the heart of the town or in the CBD or Civic Centre,” he said.
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Former mayor Munyaradzi Chitsunge suggested that Mohadi’s statue could be put right at the centre of the traffic circle at the Harare and Bulawayo roads at Beitbridge.
Mohadi, whose other names are Dugish Campbell, is of the Muleya family and was (born November 15, 1949 at Mtetengwa village, 25km west of the border town.
A war veteran and former army colonel, Mohadi is one of the major political figures in Matabeleland South province, Beitbridge in particular, to join the liberation struggle under the Joshua Nkomo-led Zapu’s Zimbabwe African People’s Revolutionary Army.
Trained by Russia’s KGB and in Egypt, Mohadi worked as a logistics supremo, delivering military equipment to the front, a role he carried forward in post-war Zimbabwe to arm South Africa’s Umkonto weSizwe, the African National Congress military wing.
Mohadi boasts of never losing an election in Beitbridge, where he was Member of Parliament since 1985 until his ascension to Vice-Presidency after the deposition of then President Robert Mugabe in a November 2017 military coup.
