Residents plan action against Chombo after dismissal of councillors

Last week Monday Chombo reportedly dismissed MDC-T councillors Warship Dumba and Casper Takura, accusing them of fraud and mismanagement of council funds. But Dumba and Takura were part of a special committee formed to investigate the theft of property in Borrowdale and Avondale, which implicated Chombo and businessman Phillip Chiyangwa.

On Tuesday, Combined Harare Residents Association chairman Simbarashe Moyo, said they are fed up with the Minister abusing his power and want to finalise their course of action against him at an upcoming meeting. Strike action will not be ruled out, and they also want to approach the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to intervene, Moyo said.

We are going to explore several options in trying to expose this kind of heavy handedness by the Minister, Moyo said.

What is left for us is to make as much noise as possible. We are going to go a step up to mount pressure on the Minister, to mount pressure on the Prime Minister even so that, if possible, he should rein in on his Ministers, Moyo added. It has reached a level whereby to ignore it will be actually dangerous, not [just] to the person ignoring it, but even to everyone in the country.

Its been reported that Chombos deputy, Sessel Zvidzai who is an MDC-T MP, has already taken the dismissal issue to the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Dumbo and Takura have reportedly threatened to take legal action against Chombo.

While he accuses councillors of corruption, Chombo himself is widely associated with it. He shocked Zimbabweans last year when the staggering amount of property he owned was revealed in his divorce case. In addition to properties in the capital, he has interests in several farms, mines and hunting safari lodges in other parts of the country and in South Africa. Critics say there is no way a former university lecturer could have acquired such wealth on his salary.

Various residents associations around the country have long been calling for Chombo to step down, because of allegations of corruption against him.