Rugare Eleck Ngidi Gumbo (born 8 March 1940) is a

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

an politician. He is a former Minister of Economic Development in the Zimbabwean government.

Early background

He grew up in colonial in Belingwe district (renamed

Mberengwa Mberengwa is a district in Midlands province in Zimbabwe. The district is now divided into sub-districts: Mberengwa North, East, West and South. It is bounded by Gwanda in Mberengwa west, and by Zvishavane in its northern zone, to the south it st ...

after independence) district of Rhodesia on 8 March 1940, and was educated at a government secondary school. From his early teens he was involved in nationalist politics, and at the age of 22 was a branch chairman of the Fort Victoria (now Masvingo)

ZAPU The Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) is a Zimbabwean political party. It is a militant organization and political party that campaigned for majority rule in Rhodesia, from its founding in 1961 until 1980. In 1987, it merged with the Zimb ...

party under

Joshua Nkomo Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo (19 June 1917 – 1 July 1999) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and Matabeleland politician who served as Vice-President of Zimbabwe from 1990 until his death in 1999. He founded and led the Zimbabwe African People's ...

Political career

Gumbo was appointed as Minister of Economic Development in April 2005, following the March 2005 parliamentary election; this appointment involved splitting a new Ministry of Economic Development from the old Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. In this position, Gumbo launched the National Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP) on 19 April 2006, in an attempt to revive Zimbabwe's struggling economy within six to nine months. He was appointed as Minister of Agriculture in February 2007. '' The Herald'' reported 3 January 2009, that Gumbo had been dismissed from the Cabinet earlier in the week, along with 11 other ministers, because he no longer held any seat in Parliament. Gumbo was suspended from ZANU PF for 5 years with immediate effect on Thursday 14 November 2014. A few weeks later he was expelled from ZANU PF. Thereafter many more politicians who were said to be aligned to former Vice President Joyce Mujuru were to also be suspended and expelled. Gumbo is a founding member and elder of a political party formed in 2015, called Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF), which disbanded after differences with Mujuru. Since 2003, Gumbo is on the

United States sanctions After the failure of the Embargo Act of 1807, the federal government of the United States took little interest in imposing embargoes and economic sanctions against foreign countries until the 20th century. United States trade policy was entirely ...

list, and from the following year also on the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

sanctions list.

References

Living people 1940 births ZANU–PF politicians Government ministers of Zimbabwe Place of birth missing (living people) {{Zimbabwe-politician-stub