PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday said all Cabinet ministers and top civil servants involved in corruption risk prosecution and dismissal once substantial evidence linking them to the allegations was gathered.
PAIDAMOYO MUZULU SENIOR REPORTER
Mugabe made the remarks in his keynote speech marking the official opening of the 6th Zanu PF Congress in the capital, Harare.
“All those implicated in corruption cases shall be arrested if substantial evidence is gathered,” Mugabe said.
“Even if you are a minister, deputy minister or senior civil servant, you will be fired.
“Give us evidence, evidence, evidence!”
Mugabe’s comments were apparently targeted at beleaguered Vice-President Joice Mujuru and her allies who for the past three months have been implicated in corrupt activities and seeking to unconstitutionally topple the Zanu PF leader.
Mujuru and her close allies such as party secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa and politburo member Nicholas Goche were conspicuous by their absence at the congress, forcing the party to rearrange the top table where Mugabe could have cut a lone figure.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
They later roped in Senate president Ednah Madzongwe and Speaker of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda.
Mugabe, First Lady Grace and party chairman and acting spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo were already at the top table.
Mugabe told the delegates that Mujuru and Mutasa were behaving like “thieves” when they absented themselves without notifying the party.
“You see, they are not here today. We wanted them to come so that they would meet you,” he said.
“We did not stop them, but they just sneaked without informing us, like thieves.”
Earlier in his speech, Mugabe apologised to the delegates about the conduct of some top party leaders particularly over the public spat that gripped the party in the past three months.
He said that behaviour was not consistent with good leadership.
“We have not behaved in a manner that showed we are united. We were all working for the party. Some of us failed us, while some of us failed you.”
Mugabe said the events had left him with a deep sense of sorrow, that as leadership they had failed to lead by example.
He further told the congress that: “Our constitution says that the disciplining of a member is done by the provincial executives and thus we should adhere to the constitution and not use our hatred in disciplining those we disagree with.”
In the past two months leading to the congress, nine provincial chairpersons and other perceived Mujuru allies were summarily suspended or dismissed from the party without following due procedure.
The congress, which ends tomorrow, is being attended by 12 000 delegates, who were expected to endorse Mugabe as the party life-president with powers to appoint all other party leaders.
Mugabe, who turns 91 in February, has been at the helm of government business since Independence in 1980 and would now have unfettered powers to appoint his deputies, national chairman and all politburo members in the ruling party.
