The Zimbabwean government on Tuesday suspended the executive mayor of the capital Harare for alleged mismanagement and for supporting two recent national strikes, state television said.
It said Engineer Elias Mudzuri, the first opposition official to head the municipality of Harare, was suspended by Local Government Minister Ignatious Chombo without pay and benefits following a series of allegations that he mismanaged the city council.
The deputy mayor, who is also from the opposition, will run the affairs of the city during Mudzuri’s suspension. According to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, Mudzuri was accused of abitrarily dismissing some municipal workers.
He was also suspended for allegedly supporting a mass work stoppages organised by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) last month and another strike called by the labour movement.
He has also been accused of failing to ensure adequate water supplies to some parts of the city.
Mudzuri was early this year arrested and then released by police along with scores of other municipal officials for allegedly breaching the country’s laws when he held a public meeting with residents to discuss their grievances.
He was elected to the seat in March 2002 to replace a Solomon Tawengwa of the ruling Zanu-PF. The latter was sacked from his post by the government in 1999 in connection with corruption charges.
Harare was run by a government-appointed commission from July 1999 to march 2002.
The MDC won 42 out of the capital’s 43 council seats in the 2002 elections. – Sapa-AFP