REDCLIFF: In a development that has infuriated the local populace here, residents from Rutendo suburb have castigated businessman-cum-politician, Madron Matiza, who dramatically reversed on his initial pledge to hand tuition support to an underprivileged man he reportedly ‘plucked from the streets’.

Matiza, a local businessman who is also an executive youth league member for the Zanu PF Midlands Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC), had initially pledged to provide Marshall Ncube (29), a man he said he took off the streets, with tuition support, a couple of years ago.

After he publicly made the pledge to provide tuition fees for Ncube- from Advanced Level to tertiary education- Matiza first employed him as a security guard at his ShopNow Supermarket in Rutendo suburb.

“He was just roaming around the streets, begging for cigarettes, when I first met him,” Matiza told this reporter back in 2020.

“But I was really touched when I was also told that he had come up with good grades at O-Level. And, for that reason I made a decision to support him so that he could proceed from where he left, academically”.

But, in dramatic fashion, Matiza ended up dismissing Ncube from work under unclear circumstances, and subsequently halted the pledge to sponsor the Redcliff born-and-bred man he had publicly paraded as one of the beneficiaries to his social responsibility initiatives.

Staffers from Join Africa Business Network- an organization which Matiza co-founded with his wife, Mwanaisha Phiri- told this publication that reasons for Ncube’s dismissal have remained vague to this day.

Speaking to this publication, Ncube’s younger brother, Professor (24), said Matiza has neither explained to the family concerning Marshall’s dismissal nor update them on the way forward with regards to the politician’s earlier pledge on tuition sponsorship.

“We really do not know what actually happened as Mr Matiza has not been able to communicate with the family on the matter. But, we really wonder if he will honor his intial pledge of funding his tuition. Maybe, he will have a change of mind but as I speak, my brother is not at work. We wonder if he will be able to hold on to his earlier pledge, ” he said.

Matiza could not immediately respond to questions from our reporter saying he was at a funeral.

Zwnews