Kasukuwere
Beatific Gumbwanda
09 April 2017, CHIREDZI – Plans by Chiredzi residents to demonstrate against Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Savior Kasukuwere’s failure to take action against reports of massive corruption at Chiredzi Town Council were dealt a blow after police showed unwillingness to sanction the march.
United Chiredzi Residents and Ratepayers Association spokesperson, Bernard Dhachi expressed disappointment for what he called spurious excuses on the part of the police.
“It’s true that we were planning to demonstrate against Kasukuwere and Chiredzi Town Council for failing to take action over the audit report which cited a lot of irregularities at the council but the police are reluctant to clear the way for us.
“On our first application, they highlighted some mistakes we had made so we went back and made a new application only for them to make more unreasonable demands. It seems they want to make things difficult for us because they are quoting a non-existent section in the law as a way of frustrating us,” said Dhachi.
He said police initially demanded that residents recruit marshals to assist maintain order in accordance with the Public Order Security Act (Posa).
On the residents’ second application, police demanded that names of all the marshals be availed to them in line with a Posa clause that later turned out to be non-existent.
Section 25 (2)e of Posa requires “the organiser to appoint marshals to assist in the maintenance of order at the public gathering.”
The clause that requires the names of the marshals to be made available to the police could not be found.politics
