By John Mhazo
Tendai Biti has begun consolidating his power in the MDC Alliance ahead of the 2023 elections, through strategically placing members of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in influential positions. This follows the recent appointment of Jacob Mafume to the position of Harare Mayor.
In a closely contested election for the seat of Harare Mayor, Mafume garnered 19 votes, five votes ahead of MDC-T’s Luckson Mukunguma who managed 14 votes. This election result was a blow to the MDC-T’s interim President Thokozani Khupe and Secretary General, Douglas Mwonzora who threw their weight behind Mukunguma.
The appointment of Mafume also comes as a stepping stone for PDP President Tendai Biti’s nocturnal ambitions to topple Nelson Chamisa as leader of the MDC- Alliance.
However, Mafume faces a daunting task of restoring the City’s Sunshine status which had been taken to the gutters owing to decades of maladministration, rampant corruption and greed by MDC Alliance leaders at the helm of the City’s affairs.
A lawyer by profession, Mafume is expected to deal with a collapsed infrastructure and ensure among other things that residents get access to scandal free land, clean water, health, rehabilitated road networks, lit up residential areas among other services that residents have been denied for over 20 years.
However, history is replete with classical examples of bad apples of rampant corruption and incompetence that have left a foul smell of retrogressive development wherever the MDC Alliance has laid its hands.
In July this year, former mayor of Harare, MDC- Alliance’s Herbert Gomba, was arrested by the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and subsequently suspended by his party after he was embroiled in scandalous and illegal land allocation deals which further sucked in party leader, Nelson Chamisa.
A syndicate of MDC Alliance mayors and councilors was busted by ZRP and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) for the illegal sale of state land to finance party operations.
Following the arrest of recently ousted Harare Mayor Hebert Gomba, ZACC Spokesperson, John Makamure warned that the anti-corruption outfit would not shy away from arresting anyone implicated in corruption.
“We will continue making arrests and more culprits will be brought to book, this applies to local authorities that have been embroiled in corruption issues such as Chitungwiza,” said Makamure.
