FARAI CHITOTOMBE
MASVINGO-The Chakabuda family has set September 30 as the date to remember their iconic father, Alderman Femias Chakabuda who died in 2015.
Alderman Chakabuda served as councillor for the ancient city from 1995 to 2013 and died in 2015 aged 64 years and this year will mark the 8th anniversary since he passed on and the family has decided to do it in style.
Alderman Chakabuda was elected onto the council in 1995 in ward 5 and served Masvingo City Council continuously until 2013.
During tenure at the Town House he served as Deputy Mayor, chairman of the Finance Committee, chairman of the Audit Committee, chairman of the Public Works and Planning Committee and Mayor of Masvingo from 2008 to 2013 and also as the president of the Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe from 2009 to 2013.
In 2012 under his stewardship, Masvingo City Council was awarded a Certificate of Excellency by the Ministry of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development for Overall Best Performing Urban Local Authority.
Alderman Chakabuda who was a well known businessman in Masvingo was born in the Mataruse area of Gutu where he went to Mataruse Primary School and Alheit Mission and completed O’ levels at Mzingwane Government School.
He went on to do his A’ levels outside Zimbabwe at Mombasa Polytechnic in Kenya and enrolled for a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics at the University of Sierra Leone from 1977 to 1979.
Alderman Chakbuda started his working life at N. Richards and Company where he worked as a clerk and when he left the N. Richards Group he went straight to join the liberation struggle and this saw him moving to Zambia, East Africa and West Africa and many other places on the continent.
He then he returned to Zimbabwe after Independence and joined Anglo American as a bookkeeper then Masimba Import and Export as managing director.
His last formal employment was at Associated Textiles where he worked as general manager. He left the company in 1987 to pursue private business interests, including commercial cattle farming.
“Alderman Chakabuda served Council with distinction and will be remembered for lobbying the ministers of Finance and Transport for the construction of the beautiful roundabout/traffic circle near Flamboyant Hotel,” said a family member.
“The Flamboyant intersection had become a traffic nightmare with many fatal road traffic accidents and the late Alderman Chakabuda lobbied for funding for the construction of the Flamboyant Traffic Circle with zeal, passion and consistency which the results are here for all of us too see,”.
On 28 November 2009 the City of Masvingo entered into a twinning relationship with the city of Kitwe, Zambia which happened during the time the late Alderman Chakabuda was Mayor of Masvingo.
