By Lance Guma
12 November 2010
Last week the state owned Herald newspaper published sensational details of the properties and vehicles owned by local government Minister Ignatius Chombo. The Minister is locked in a bitter and messy divorce with his wife Marian and her claim for a share of the wealth is opening a can of worms and exposing him as corrupt.
According to the article Chombo accumulated a spectacular list of assets that includes 15 cars, 14 houses, 75 commercial and residential stands, 4 flats and interests in numerous companies, including a mine and a farm.
This week the matter took a new twist after the Zimbabwe Mail website reported that the editor of the Herald ‘received death threats and an envelope package with a live bullet, fresh human blood stains’ and a chilling warning that he should not to be involved in ZANU PF power struggles.
The pick of the revelations contained in the letter was that the Herald story ‘was influenced by Presidential Affairs Minister Didymus Mutasa in his revenge mission, following the arrest of his nephew Temba Mliswa and son Martin Mutasa.
In the past Mliswa and Chombo are said to have clashed in their bid to wrestle control of ZANU PF’s Mashonaland West province. Mliswa has also accused Chombo and Information Minister Webster Shamu, along with other party officials, of leasing out over 30 farms in the province to former white commercial farmers.
Sources who spoke to the Zimbabwe Mail said Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, a close associate of Mutasa, took a direct interest in Chombo’s divorce case and sometime this year instructed officers at the Deeds Registry to compile a dossier of all properties registered in Chombo’s name. He is also alleged to have had secret meetings with Chombo’s estranged wife Marian, giving her legal advice.
Even Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba has been roped into the saga, with speculation that he met Mutasa and Chinamasa soon after the judge ordered the divorce case to go to trial. It’s claimed the three ‘drafted an article which Charamba took to the Herald where he ordered its immediate publication.’
Meanwhile Chombo’s lawyers have written to the Herald claiming 90 percent of the properties listed do not belong to him. ‘We humbly request a retraction of the publications falsehoods which basically served to embarrass the Honourable Minister and to cause other hurts to his person, family and those who he loves as a normal being,’ the letter said.
Whatever the truth of the matter, it’s clear the state owned Herald published the story only because of the fierce internal power struggles in ZANU PF, with corrupt officials turning on each other for many different reasons.
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