|
Back to Index
This article participates on the following special index pages:
Operation Murambatsvina - Countrywide evictions of urban poor - Index of articles
Municipal
police loot food for clean-up victims
ZimOnline
November 01, 2006
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=377
HARARE – Senior
Harare municipal police officers looted food worth over $97 000
meant for last year’s clean-up victims and suspended four worker
representatives for exposing the theft, a council audit report reveals.
Harare’s municipal
police and soldiers were at the forefront in demolishing city backyard
cottages, shanty towns and informal business kiosks during the widely
condemned Operation
Murambatsvina (Operation Drive out Rubbish) that left at least
700 000 people without shelter or means of livelihood.
A United Nations
report compiled after the demolitions said another 2.4 million people
were also indirectly affected by the exercise which President Robert
Mugabe said was necessary to rid Zimbabwean cities of squalor and
crime.
According to the
audit report, dated 17th August 2006, the municipal police officers
helped themselves to tinned food rations meant for victims of the
clean-up exercise during breakfast and council management meetings.
The food was donated
by international aid agencies for distribution to the poor and homeless
after the home demolition exercise.
"The allegations
contained in the anonymous letter have been proved to be true. The
municipal police managers confessed to having consumed Operation
Murambatsvina tinned food rations worth $97 142, 37.
"No authority
was sought for the consumption," says the report.
The four council
workers who blew the whistle on their colleagues were however suspended
without pay, in a clear case of victimisation.
The four, G Jembe,
H Mazamnhi, M Sadomba, I Sigauke were suspended last June and are
now pursuing legal action to be reinstated to their positions.
Chairwoman of
the state-appointed commission running Harare Sekesai Makwavarara
was not immediately available for comment on the matter.
The Zimbabwean
government has been reluctant to allow food aid into the country
for victims of the clean-up exercise.
More than 30 tonnes
of food donated by the South African Council of Churches took over
a month to be handed over to the clean-up victims because the authorities
would not timeously clear the aid. - ZimOnline
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
