Zanu PF chef accused of sexual harassment

By Henry Makiwa
17 October 2007

Karikoga Kaseke, a top Zanu PF official and Zimbabwe’s tourism boss, was on Monday publicly accused of sexual harassment by former beauty queen Sipho Mazibuko, barely a year after he evaded charges of raping a minor.

Mazibuko who runs Strides Modelling agency and founded the Miss Rural beauty pageant, told journalists in Harare that Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) chief Kaseke was now trying to block her business plans because she turned down his sexual advances. But on Wednesday the former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Communications dismissed Mazibuko as “mad”.

Mazibuko told stunned journalists at a press conference that Kaseke was blocking the hosting of her pageant's finals after she refused to sleep with him.

She said: "I have called you so that you understand why we are postponing the finals of the Miss Rural Zimbabwe pageant. We have been having problems with the ZTA which wants to take over my pageant and is blocking the holding of the finals because I refused to be Kaseke's girlfriend and to sleep with him." According to the Zimonline news agency, Mazibuko was surrounded by more than a dozen burly bodyguards at the press conference.

Kaseke’s ZTA, a quasi government body that promotes tourism, has the authority to licence the hosting of all beauty pageants in Zimbabwe.

He has counter-accused Mazibuko of attempting to blackmail his organisation through unfounded allegations.

He said: "I have contacted my lawyers to sue her for criminal defamation and we will deal with her accordingly. She is well mad and is on record as saying all men in Zimbabwe like her and she has insured her body for US$1 million. Now she is moving around with over 16 bodyguards, how crazy can one be. I am not losing any sleep over it at all.”

Mazibuko, however insists she was harassed and has already filed legal charges through her lawyers.

Kaseke is a former Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe chief executive and known loyalist of Vice President Joyce Mujuru. He was last year forced to resign from his post in government after he was accused of raping an under-age orphaned girl, Nyasha Sonia Ndanga.

The case was quashed out of court after the intervention of Mujuru.