GMB boss nabbed on corruption charges

GMB boss nabbed on corruption charges

• Renson Gasela: Zimbabwe: the politics of food

• MDC slams UN agencies

• 'Zimbabweans very, very happ' - Mugabe •

• Mugabe blames poverty on Britain, US

• Interview: Chen says no crisis in Zimbabwe

• Police blitz on flea markets nets 9600 traders

• Harare residents can't quench their thirst

• Price of bread up as shortages persist

• Bread prices up 50 percent

• Zim officials break ranks on food crisis

• Interview: Mutasa's lie rant at radio journalist in food crisis row

By Staff Reporter

THE head of Zimbabwe's main state grain marketing board has been arrested on graft charges, police said Saturday.

Andrew Phiri, a police spokesperson and inspector, said Samuel Muvuti, a retired army colonel and acting chief executive officer of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), was arrested on Friday on charges of defrauding the GMB of $3 800.

Phiri said Muvuti, who denies the charges, was accused of paying some of his private farm workers from GMB salary coffers.

Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, ordered a crackdown on corruption last month to try to resolve Zimbabwe's economic crisis, blamed by critics on his policies in the southern African country he has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980.

On Monday, a Harare court sentenced the head of Zimbabwe's state bus company to two years in jail for soliciting a $85 000 bribe to award a bus procurement tender.

Zimbabwe state television reported that Muvuti was released on bail on Saturday and was ordered to return to the court on September 8 for a procedural remand hearing.

Mugabe says rising corruption is threatening his government's efforts to revive an economy in recession over the last eight years and which is now struggling with the world's highest inflation rate of nearly 1 000%. – Reuters
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com