POLICE have arrested two drivers on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s staff and seized two vehicles, his office said.
Tsvangirai’s spokesman said the men had been detained at the Beitbridge border post last Friday as they drove into Zimbabwe from South Africa.
“The drivers were coming in from South Africa where the vehicles had undergone a routine upgrading of the siren and security systems,” Luke Tamborinyoka said in a statement on Monday.
Clifford Sanyika and Joshua Mhuriyengwe, whose ages were not given, appeared before a Beitbridge magistrate on Monday charged with driving two Toyota Prado vehicles fitted with blue beacon lights and sirens. Prosecutors say these can only be used by emergency services, the police, the army and presidential escort.
The Prime Minister’s office disputes that the lights were fitted. Tamborinyoka said the beacon lights were in fact on the passenger seats of the two vehicles.
Prosecutors opposed bail, arguing that the two men were a “security threat”, he added.
A magistrate will rule on their bail application on Tuesday.
“God knows how two drivers attested into the civil service and driving the Prime Minister’s vehicles with sirens and beacons can ever be said to constitute a security threat to the country,” Tamborinyoka said.
“The arrest of the PM’s drivers and the impounding of his vehicles represent cheap political drama that is meant to embarrass his person and his office.
“The only explanation for this political gimmick is that it fits in well with the perennial scheme by State security agents to persecute the Prime Minister.”
It is not the first time police have seized vehicles belonging to Tsvangirai. In 2008, an armoured BMW X5 was detained in Lupane, where it remains, after police said it had been illegally imported from South Africa.