MDC-T suspends councillor over ‘Mugabe Must Go’ t-shirt
By Tatenda Mabasa
CHINHOYI – Tendai Musonza, a former Zanu PF official who is now a councillor for the MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has been suspended by his own party after he attended a full council meeting wearing a t-shirt written ‘Mugabe Must Go.’
Musonza is among eight councilors who were suspended last Friday for violating council rules while others were implicated in scandals involving housing stands. Chinhoyi and Kariba municipalities had three councilors each suspended while two others are from Karoi.
It is alleged that Chinhoyi ward 4 councilor Simeon Gotami and ward 5 councilor one Dube were suspended for duping desperate residents by selling non existent housing stands.
Karoi ward 1 councillor and party district chairman David Mutambirwa was suspended after he tore some council vouchers that were ready for payments last year. He is also accused of bringing council business into disrepute when he attended meetings in drunken stupor forcing a meeting to be abandoned.
Jackson Mbonga, ward 6 councilor is serving a three month jail term after he failed to repay $300 he swindled from a resident claiming he could facilitate a cheap housing stand.
In Kariba, councilors Chatora Musemburi and Mukoyi Dzapasi were suspended for undisclosed offences while the third person’s name was not available at the time of writing. Big Haurobi who is MDC-T Mashonaland West party spokesperson confirmed the suspensions saying its not a political purge.
“The suspensions are clear that they violated council code of conduct and if they are punished, the party can not be seen defending that. There is no purge as we are heading for party primary elections as one of the suspended councilor, Mbonga is serving a jail term.
“The warning is clear that our party does not condone criminality if you are a public officer representing the party”.
He said the party was still yet to get written appeals by those affected. Party sources said suspended policy makers are due to meet deputy local government minister Cecil Zvidzai who could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.
