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Chombo, public media in bid to tarnish MDC councillors
Movement for Democratic Change
March 25, 2010

Harare City Council employees in the housing and community services department fraudulently changed ownership of council tenants to those of Harare councillors in a well-orchestrated Zanu PF attempt to mislead and discredit the MDC and its councillors.

In what has turned out to be a desperate attempt by the Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development, Ignatius Chombo to stop councillors from investigating his illegal acquisition of council land, Chombo clandestinely used council workers in the housing department to malign councillors from the MDC.

The department and Chombo falsely claimed that the councillors were evicting desperate tenants from their lodgings when in fact it was Harare city Council that was evicting tenants from its houses.

In connivance with the Director of Housing, Justin Chivavaya, council employees and the public media, Chombo incriminated Clr Wellington Chikombo of Ward 28 in Glen Norah claiming that he had fraudulently acquired house number 1739 in the same suburb.

Clr Chikombo has neither applied for nor has he occupied the said property, which is a privately owned house currently being occupied by its owner, Mr Ben Kapesi and his family. The house in question is not a council property but is under a home ownership scheme. There is no way a councillor or anyone else can engage in a hostile take-over ownership of the said property.

Clr Chikombo has never applied for a council rented house and is currently staying at his house, number 1738 Glen Norah A.

The Herald, through its news editor, Mabasa Sasa on Wednesday apologised to Clr Chikombo for erroneously and unprofessionally reporting that he had evicted a tenant in order for him to move in.

Today, the discredited public medium made a retraction claiming that it had written the story following a street interview with a fictitious Glen Norah resident, Tendai Sithole, who claimed that Clr Chikomba was in the process of evicting Mr Kapesi without getting any comment from the two.

This desperate attempt by Chombo to tarnish and malign Clr Chikombo and other councillors from the MDC is meant to block the repossession of council land that Chombo illegally possessed in 2008.

Other councillors were falsely accused of having evicted tenants. These are Clrs Peter Marange (Ward 29) and Hebert Gomba (Ward 21) both in Glen Norah.

The councillors never evicted anyone and neither do they occupy council rented houses nor are they paying any bills to council for the houses in question.

They have since gone to The Herald seeking retraction over the incorrect press reports.

Claims by The Herald were that Clr Marange had taken over house number 2321 and Clr Gomba number 4910.
Clr Marange is staying at his Glen Norah home, number 2643, while Clr Gomba stays at number 5335 and neither has occupied the said council properties, which are believed to be occupied by council employees.

This month there was a council resolution to repossess 20 hectares of land at Number 61 Helensvale, Borrowdale that were illegally possessed by Chombo.

Following Chombo's attempts to tarnish the image of the elected councillors, all the Harare City councillors have since resolved to withdraw their applications for the occupation of council-rented accommodation.

The MDC calls for an investigation of council employees who fraudulently incriminated MDC councillors when they falsely accused them of evicting tenants when in fact they have not evicted anyone.

As a Party of Excellence, the MDC has zero tolerance towards corruption and the party will not hesitate to take appropriate action on any of its public officials who engages in corrupt activities.

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