Chief accused of abusing powers

their local chief of arbitrarily ordering them to pay a road levy.
The levy is meant to repair the heavily dilapidated Topora-Chatikobo Road in the area. The villagers led by their headmen are also accusing the local Chief Efias Munodawafa Murinye are questioning how some of the money has been used.
The villagers have now since appealed to Government to stop chief Murinye from forcing them to pay the road levy arguing that the repair of the road was not their obligation.
However, Chief Murinye yesterday dismissed the allegations saying they were being pushed by people with a vendetta against him.
Some of the villagers, who spoke to The Herald said the chief had no power to order them to pay the road levy.
“We are really fed up because every village is being asked to pay US$50. What is now worrying us is that the village heads are coming back to us demanding more money again alleging that they are being sent by the chief, we are tired of this,” said a villager from Munamati who refused to be named.
Another villager from Chineka area said while it was proper for villagers to contribute some money towards developing infrastructure in their areas it was wrong to force people to pay the money.
“We do not want to be forced to pay the money to repair the roads some of the village heads always come to us demanding money claiming to have been sent by the chief,” said the villager. Chief Murinye denied abusing any funds or forcing villagers to pay money for repairing the Topora-Chatikobo Road. He accused some villagers of abusing his name. He said he had reached a consensus with villagers that they needed to pool money to repair the road near Topora business centre and repair some bridges in the area.
“It’s only some few disgruntled individuals who are out to tarnish my name because they have a score to settle with me.
“We agreed with the villagers for every village to provide eight bags of cement each so that we could repair our road but there are some village heads who are now going to the villagers asking them to pay more money, that is not what we agreed,” said Chief Murinye.
Masvingo district administrator Mr James Mazvidza said the Topora-Chatikobo Road fell under the District Development Fund hence any efforts to repair it were supposed to be done through DDF.
He said asking villagers to contribute for road repairs was illegal as it was supposed to be done voluntarily.