SW Radio Africa news - The Independent Voice of Zimbabwe
ZANU PF parliamentary candidates, who campaigned and then ran for election in the July poll, have defied party orders to surrender their campaign vehicles, worth millions of dollars. Didymus Mutasa, ZANU PF’s secretary for administration and Presidential Affairs Minister, in the new government, wrote to provincial chairpersons in October instructing them to hand over the Ford Everest cars they used during their campaigns.“Each candidate is instructed to return the vehicles to their provincial headquarters. This is the final call for the surrender of the vehicles,” Mutasa said, indicating that initial calls for the return of the vehicles had been ignored. The Ford Everest reportedly costs between R384,800 to R450,800, suggesting that ZANU PF spent some $10 million on the cars. Losing candidates have resisted returning the vehicles saying ZANU PF should sell them at “nominal prices.” According to the Daily News newspaper, a Harare candidate said: “We are not being rebellious but we have hope that the party will consider giving us the vehicles or allow us to buy because we still need to continue mobilising supporters and maintain our visibility as a party until the next election in 2018.”