Chombo ignores elected councillors & appoints Commissions

By Tererai Karimakwenda
May 29, 2008

The law in Zimbabwe stipulates that newly elected councillors should assume office immediately after the announcement of election results. Yet eight weeks after the March 29 election, they have still not been sworn-in. Now Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo has reportedly appointed commissions to run the country’s major cities and towns. The MDC immediately blasted Chombo for sidelining their elected councillors.

The MDC won a majority of the seats on local councils in most urban as well as rural districts, and they now dominate municipalities in cities including Harare, Bulawayo, Chitungwiza, Mutare, Masvingo, Gweru, Kwekwe and Chinhoyi.

Mike Davies from the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) described Chombo’s move as ‘an outrageous criminal act by a criminal regime’. He said there is no government running the country and what we have is a criminal regime that is functioning under a veil of secrecy to hide their criminal acts.

The outspoken activist said Harare is being treated as one big money making business, and that ZANU-PF is only interested in having ‘a good time at the trough’ by looting the capital’s resources, giving huge contracts to their cronies and hiring their family and friends. There are unconfirmed reports currently circulating in Harare that there has been a massive employment drive in government owned parastatals since the elections in March.

Davies said CHRA intends to file legal papers to try and force the regime to install the legitimately elected councils. He explained that Chombo and ZANU-PF will ignore the courts as they have done on numerous occasions in the past, but CHRA is taking the legal route in order to create a record of the abuses.