Zimbabwean capital city suspends 4 officials

HARARE, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) — Zimbabwe’s capital Harare City Council has suspended four officials from the Harare Water Department on allegations of trying to benefit from donations meant to assist the country in fighting the current cholera outbreak which has so far claimed at least 30 lives.
Council spokesperson Michael Chideme confirmed to Xinhua in an interview Wednesday that the four employees had been sent home following the allegations leveled against them.
Econet Wireless Group founder and chairman Strive Masiyiwa said on Monday that when his group set aside 10 million U.S. dollars to help fight the outbreak, some people decided to benefit from the donation by at times inflating prices of consumables.
“One of the saddest things that happened last week when Econet announced that it had set aside 10 million dollars to help with support to buy medicines and materials, was the number of suppliers, and even officials in some of the affected municipalities who tried to defraud our company by offering things at highly inflated prices!”
He said he had told Econet officials to prepare lists of anyone who willfully tried to exploit the situation.
“After this crisis is over we will go after them on this platform. Naming and shaming them,” he said on his blog. – XINHUA