City of Harare traffic officers nabbed for extortion

The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has arrested City of Harare traffic officers, Bertha Gondo and Gabriel Mukoka for extortion.

The accused demanded US20 dollars bribe and the complainant pleaded with the officers for a lesser amount which they rejected and insisted on the USD20.

This was under the watchful eye of ZACC officers who then pounced on them leading to their arrest.

The two will appear in court on 31 March 2023 for initial remand.

Meanwhile, yesterday ZACC arrested Clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda for criminal abuse of office. The charge were in connection with the scandalous procurement of laptops for legislators.

The anti-graft body confirmed Chokuda’s arrest on Thursday for criminal abuse of duty as a public officer.

He appeared in court, and was freed on ZW$100 000 bail.

Apparently, Chokuda came under fire last year when he awarded a tender to privately owned Blinart Investments to supply 173 laptops to parliament with each gadget quoted at US$9,264.49.

The tender was cancelled after the Finance Ministry refused to process payment for the exorbitantly priced gadgets.

The awarding of the tender to Blinart Investments was done in spite of that other competing companies had placed bids with quotations which had reasonably priced laptops.

The revelations sparked public outrage and spotlighted on massive abuse of tender processes by some corrupt government officials working in cahoots with tenderpreneurs.

Zwnews