Mwonzora’s former aide and party activist, Patson Murimoga,
who said he reported the case to the police and Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption
Commission, appears to have the support of party vice-president Thokozani Khupe
and other senior executives.
Murimoga told NewsDay yesterday that he felt the delay in
arresting Mwonzora was because political considerations were taking precedence
over justice.
National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul
Nyathi, however, yesterday confirmed that the matter was being investigated.
“I can confirm that we received that case, and it is being
investigated by the Criminal Investigations Department,” Nyathi said.
Mwonzora’s spokesperson Lloyd Damba rubbished the
allegations of theft, arguing that Murimoga was not an influential party
member.
“First, you need to understand that Murimoga has no locus
standi to speak about party finances because he is not a member of the finance
and administration committee. He was just a band member, a praise singer for
the party and it ends there,” Damba said.
“You must also understand that the finances of the party
are not administered by an individual, but by a committee, and the party
account has more than three signatories and not an individual.”
But Murimoga claimed that MDC-T supporters were not happy
because of the missing money and the lack of explanation from Mwonzora.
“We had the Elias Mashavira case that he sponsored, but we
never had (Morgan) Tsvangirai firing him. He also was behind cases that fought
(MDC Alliance leader Nelson) Chamisa, but he was not fired from the party. I am
tempted to think that the people he fought accusing them of being undemocratic
were actually better than him,” he said.
Mwonzora accuses losing MDC-T presidential candidates for
pushing Murimoga to get him arrested over the alleged missing $6 million, which
he says could be accounted for.
Last week during a party meeting, top executives of the
party, including Khupe, were ordered to leave for defying a directive to
withdraw financial impropriety charges they filed against the party leader.
The resolution to purge defiant executives was read out to
Khupe and her team last Wednesday following a national standing committee
meeting held two weeks ago.
Besides Khupe, Mwonzora’s axe is also likely to fall on
party chairperson Morgen Komichi, Chief Ndlovu and several top executives after
they insisted that Mwonzora should account for the $6 million which they say
was illegally withdrawn from party coffers ahead of the party’s extraordinary
congress in December.
Mwonzora allegedly ordered party heavyweights to withdraw
their support for the case.
Damba claimed that the congress had made a resolution that
there were no missing funds, hence Mwonzora had no case to answer. Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment