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NewsDay

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Kasukuwere beefs up security

Politics
INDIGENISATION minister Saviour Kasukuwere has reportedly approached the Police Protection Unit (PPU) seeking to have his security beefed up, claiming his life is in danger.

INDIGENISATION minister Saviour Kasukuwere has reportedly approached the Police Protection Unit (PPU) seeking to have his security beefed up, claiming his life is in danger.

Report by Everson Mushava

Sources told NewsDay this week that Kasukuwere feared his life was under threat from enemies of the indigenisation and empowerment programme the minister is driving.

The minister is said to have claimed his detractors were also bent on destroying his image by alleging corruption in the indigenisation transactions made by the minister.

Kasukuwere allegedly now moved in a cavalcade of three vehicles including two police officers from the PPU who drove in one vehicle while two Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives followed in another. Another CIO operative reportedly drove with the minister in his official vehicle.

Kasukuwere, however, dismissed the reports as false saying he had nothing to fear and that he was not a “showman” who moved in a convoy.

“I don’t know anything about that. It could be beerhall talk. Why should I move in a convoy? I am not a showman,” he said yesterday.

PPU spokesperson Inspector Martin Mbokochena also denied the allegations and said his department was responsible only for static guards. He referred further questions to police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba who said she was not aware of the development.

“I am hearing it from you. I will check, but currently I am in Bulawayo,” Charamba said early this week.

Kasukuwere, Transport minister Nicholas Goche and Mines minister Obert Mpofu have been targeted by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) probe. The High Court has, however, blocked the commission from searching the ministers’ offices on a technicality.

The Indigenisation minister has said the move could be the works of his detractors at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe who have allegedly been funding ZACC.

Central bank governor Gideon Gono and Kasukuwere have clashed on the indigenisation of banks and have made several exchanges in a war of words that has now spilled into the public domain.

Kasukuwere accused Gono of trying to derail the indigenisation drive.

Last week, Tsholotsho MP Jonathan Moyo, apparently fighting in Kasukuwere’s corner, invigorated his tirade against Gono, accusing him of sabotaging the indigenisation policy.

Gono has accused proponents of the indigenisation drive of being ill-advised.

“Some of those accusing me of undermining indigenisation now, were either still youngsters then or anti-Zanu PF donor-funded expatriates,” he said recently, in what seemed to be an attack on both Moyo and Kasukuwere.

Gono too was this week reportedly said to have received threats on his life and had left the country, allegedly fleeing the threats.

The central bank governor, however, immediately denied the allegations and said he was in Egypt on business.