A ZANU PF youth group known as Al Shabaab has grabbed Mbizo parliamentary constituency offices in Kwekwe amid reports that they are now using it as a torture base for opposition MDC supporters and for pushing drugs.
BY BRENNA MATENDERE
When a Southern Eye crew visited the offices in Mbizo 12 over the weekend, graffiti had been inscribed on the building walls with the words Vote Zanu PF 2023 ED#.
Mbizo MP Settlement Chikwinya told Southern Eye that the offices were grabbed by the Zanu PF youths during his detention at Kwekwe Remand Prison after he had been arrested over the January fuel price hike protests.
Chikwinya, who has since been acquitted of the charges, said he found the offices occupied upon return.
“I have not been using the offices because I have been blocked from entering the premises. When I was arrested in January on false allegations of inciting violence during the fuel price hike protests, I came back and found the offices besieged,” he said.
Zanu PF Midlands provincial spokesperson Cornelius Mupereri, however, professed ignorance over the office grab. “I have no knowledge about that issue,” he said. The constituency parliamentary offices were established by government using taxpayers’ money countrywide and they are meant to be a platform for interaction between elected MPs and the electorate.
Residents living around the seized offices alleged that the youths who were now based at the offices were trafficking drugs supplied to them by druglords linked to Zanu PF.
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The residents also said the youths engaged in acts of violence at night at the offices.
