Mark Grey Marongwe
Mark Grey Tichatonga Marongwe is a Zimbabwean war veteran and former diplomat. He was appointed Secretary for Defence and War Veterans Affairs in 2019. Marongwe is also a retired veteran radio and television broadcaster, who was once a manager at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
Background
Born: His birth name is Mark Marongwe and Grey Tichatonga is his nom de guerre. [1]
Marriage: Wife Emma Marongwe died on 13 June 2015 following a four-year battle with breast cancer. Emma was the late former Mabvuku MP Pamela Christine Tungamirai’s younger sister. [1]
Marongwe struggled for money to bring his wife to Zimbabwe for burial because he had been unpaid and the Government did not offer any assistance. Marongwe had to borrow from the Bank of Kuwait to pay for airfares, embalming and other expenses despite the fact that by 2016, Treasury owed him US$127,000 in salary arrears. [2]
Children: Marongwe and his late wife have three children including a daughter named Gugulethu Mary Ann Tichatonga Marongwe. [1]
Service/Career
Second Chimurenga Contribution
Mark Marongwe was a guerrilla fighter with Zanu-PF’s Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) from 1975 to 1977.[3] Marongwe together with Sobusa Gula-Ndebele and Nyasha Donald Musiiwa was part of the Voice of Zimbabwe (VoZ) which beamed from Maputo in Mozambique.[4]
ZBC
Mark Marongwe is a retired veteran radio and television broadcaster, who was once a manager at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. Marongwe was appointed first indigenous Zimbabwean to occupy the office of director of radio and television news and current affairs at ZBC in 1980.
Ambassadors
In 1990, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Minister Counsellor at the Embassy of Zimbabwe in Washington, DC, United States of America. He acted as charge d’affaires at the embassy between 1993 and 1995 before the appointment of a substantive ambassador.
Marongwe also served as Zimbabwe’s High Commissioner to Mozambique early 1999 before he moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo as ambassador in 2002 to supervise the withdrawal of Zimbabwean troops. (See Congo Wars - Zimbabwe)
In 2007, he was appointed Zimbabwe Ambassador to Kuwait, while also accredited as non-resident Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen. The Embassy in Kuwait also covered Jordan and Lebanon. [3]
Before his appointment as Secretary for Ministry of Defence and War Veterans Affairs in 2019, Marongwe was the Director of Regional Cooperation and Continental Integration in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
In December 2022, (for end of year) Aaron Nhepera was moved as Permanent Secretary from the Ministry of Home Affairs and appointed the new secretary for Defence. He replaced Ambassador Mark Grey Marongwe as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans’ Affairs when the he retires on 31 December 2022. [5]
Events
Properties
- Stand number 41506 along Robert Mugabe Road in Harare.[6]
Kuwait Human Trafficking
Mark Grey Marongwe was Zimbabwe's ambassador to Kuwait when 200 Zimbabwean women were trafficked to Kuwait. [7] The women were located with Marongwe's help. [8]
Further Reading
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Diplomat’s wife dies in Kuwait, NewsDay, Published: June 16, 2015, Retrieved: July 18, 2021
- ↑ Unpaid Zim envoy struggles to bury wife, The Zimbabwean, Published: May 17, 2016, Retrieved: July 18, 2021
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Freeman Razemba , ED makes snr appointments, The Herald, Published: April 13, 2019, Retrieved: July 18, 2021
- ↑ Lloyd Mutema-Hazvineyi, Beaming from the trenches to Independence, The Sunday Mail, Published: April 22, 2018, Retrieved: July 18, 2021
- ↑ President Mnangagwa Reassigns Former CIO Boss, Pindula, Published: 19 December 2022, Retrieved: 20 December 2022
- ↑ Tinashe Makichi, Relief for car dealers, Business Times, Published: No Date Given, Retrieved: July 18, 2021
- ↑ Nqobile Bhebhe, 200 Zimbabwean women trafficked to Kuwait, The Africa Report, Published: March 2016, Retrieved: July 18, 2021
- ↑ Lloyd Gumbo, Rescued trafficking victims expected today, The Herald, Published: April 30, 2016, Retrieved: July 18, 2021
