Mugove Tafirenyika • 19 November 2015 11:51AM • 7 comments
HARARE - Zanu PF central committee member Philip Chiyangwa has savaged war veterans’ leader Victor Matemadanda, describing him as an extortionist who is abusing his office in order to get freebies from hardworking businessmen.
Chiyangwa’s attack on Mutemadanda follows the war veterans leader’s claims at a press conference on Monday that former liberation war fighters and other landless Zimbabweans were being pushed off their land by Zanu PF politicians under the guise of indigenisation.
While Matemadanda did not mention names, he made inferences that some of the politicians included deputy Agriculture minister Paddy Zhanda and Chiyangwa as he cited their properties in Caledonia and Harare South respectively, as examples.
But yesterday, Chiyangwa came out guns blazing alleging that Matemadanda’s diatribe directed at him was a case of sour grapes after he “previously persistently made requests to me to be provided with a residential stand for no payment”.
“Having failed to justify why he considers himself so special to be entitled to a donation, the individual has now attempted to achieve his objective by means of colore officii (extortion by colour of office),” Chiyangwa alleged.
The businessman-cum-politician, said Matemadanda was driven by personal greed to intimidate him by flaunting liberation war credentials.
“In his numerous previous communications, he purported to have participated in the making of Zimbabwe and that purely on that self-created effigy; he deserved a residential stand from me without paying even a dime.
“He is fully aware that his demands were patently extortionate and manifestly illegal. I did not consider him worthy of my attention as he clearly constituted a nuisance and an annoyance in my life”.
Chiyangwa added that the war veterans’ leader is seeking to camouflage his “extortionist” tendencies by pretending to speak on behalf of war veterans.
“He has exuded traits of being a surreptitious character, evidently seeking to reap where he has not sown. He has no record or resume of having made any meaningful contribution to the Zimbabwean society and lacks the common decency of self-respect by parading his frustration for his failed disgraceful fraudulent acts so openly”.
At his Monday press conference Matemadanda called on President Robert Mugabe to establish a commission of enquiry to flush out senior Zanu PF officials with Rhodesian connections holding onto land in and around the country’s urban centres on behalf of “ex-Rhodies”.
He claimed that most of the officials “previously worked for Rhodesian security services either as soldiers or as police officers” and were “fleecing poor Zimbabweans”.
But Chiyangwa said Matemadanda‘s mention of Mugabe’s name “in the scandalous act” was “deliberately calculated to put the Office of the President, the Government and the revolutionary party that he leads into disrepute”.
Chiyangwa further described Matemadanda as a man of “crooked” means of survival.
“Common sense and my expertise in finance leads me to the ineluctable conclusion that people who pursue such brazenly lazy and nefarious survival antics are destined to perpetually wallow in poverty and destitution . . . ”.