A group of veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s liberation war have approached a bank that has offered government US$38 billion worth of loans, demanding a share of the funds, the Zimbabwe Independent can report.

Led by Douglas Mahiya, national secretary in the ruling Zanu PF’s War Veterans League, the group reminded Time Bank that liberators suffered in the bush for everyone’s freedom.

They demanded that they must not be excluded from packages like the one tabled recently.

The bank made an ambitious proposal of arranging syndicated loans of US$38 billion to the government as part of a strategy to compensate various groups, including former farm owners and financing Zimbabwe’s sovereign debt resolution.

Confidential communication between Time Bank and the war veterans said “we expect everyone to know that veterans of the liberation sacrificed a lot to liberate this country and that they deserve to be paid such compensation”.

Time Bank, which re-entered the market about a year ago after being affected by a wave of bank failures between 2004 and 2005, is a privately-operated business with no known links to the Zimbabwean government.

But it has cobbled a plan to help Zimbabwe address deepening financial problems triggered by a long drawn economic crisis.

The letter, signed by Mahiya, Evaristo Pfumvuti and Richard Chirongwe, was responding to advertisements placed in newspapers by Time Bank, in which it disclosed plans to rescue the country.