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Trust Freddy
Herald Correspondent
Harare City Council’s Works and Town Planning chairperson Councilor Takudzwa Dzumbunu has been detained at Old Makombe Building after she was found guilty of failing to attend a commission hearing on Tuesday without a valid excuse.
Despite being excused at 11 am after promising to return at 1:30 pm, Dzumbunu did not show up at the agreed time, prompting Retired High Court Judge Justice Maphios Cheda’s commission to take action.
In his ruling, Retired Justice Cheda ordered Councillor Dzumbunu to be detained until the rising of the commission at 4 pm.
“The reasons you are giving are not good enough to excuse yourself from being held in contempt of this commission,” he ruled.
He referenced Section 14.1, which empowers commissioners to detain individuals who willfully interrupt proceedings.
“In terms of Commissions of Inquiry Act Chapter 10:7 Section 14 (1), if any person, at any sitting of the commission, willfully insults any commissioner or the secretary or willfully interrupts the proceedings of the commission or otherwise willfully disturbs the peace or order of such proceedings, any commissioner may order that person to be removed and detained in custody until the rising of the commission,” he said.
“We therefore make an order that you be removed from these proceedings for the time being and direct that you be detained in custody within these premises until the commission’s rising at 4 pm today, October 16, 2024.”
Dzumbunu is currently in police custody at Old Makombe Building and has been warned to take the commission’s business seriously.
Retired Justice Cheda showed leniency in sentencing Harare City Dzumbunu, considering she was a first-time offender with family responsibilities.
Dzumbunu is taking care of her two-year-old son, her mother, and another child.
Sub- section 2 of the Act states that any person referred to in Sub-section 1 could face a fine up to level five, imprisonment up to six months, or both.
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