Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa has described the late Ambassador Evelyne Kawonza, who died on Friday, as a hard-working citizen of a ‘pioneering crop of civil servants who shaped and manned Government systems’ since the country’s attainment of Independence from British colonial supremacy in 1980.
The late Ambassador Kawonza was a long-serving Director of State Occasions in the Office of the President and Cabinet.
A successful potato seed producer revered in Mashonaland West Province , Ambassador Kawonza’s diplomatic work spanned for more than ten years in various countries across the globe.
Said Mnangagwa in a condolence message to the Kawonza family:
“The death yesterday (Friday) of Ambassador Evelyne Kawonza following a long period of illness has robbed our Nation of a long serving civil servant and a loyal and diligent Ambassador. A longtime Director of State Occasions in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Ambassador Kawonza belonged to a pioneering crop of civil servants who shaped and manned our Government systems from Independence in 1980 when the country suffered from a dearth of skills in the civil service”.
He also added that the late diplomat ‘served Government without blemish’ which saw her rising through the ranks to become Zimbabwe’s ambassador in different parts of the world.
The Zimbabwe strongman further paid tribute to the late Amb Kawonza for the role she played in her defence of the state-sponsored controversial Land Reform Programme of the early 2000s, while on diplomatic service in the West.
“We have lost a humble civil servant and a hardworking citizen who believed in her own country and served it wholeheartedly and with honesty. On behalf of the Government, my family and on my own behalf, I wish to express my deepest condolences to the Kawonza family who have lost their loved one. May they derive solace from the distinguished public career of the dear departed, and the high regard in which our Nation held her. May her dear soul rest in eternal peace,” Mnangagwa said.
Zwnews/state media
