Harare - Zimbabwe's under-fire police
chief Augustine Chihuri has insisted that an unbelievably palatial Harare
mansion with a swimming pool, water features and lush flower borders is NOT
his, a newspaper is reporting.
Social media in Zimbabwe has
been awash with claims that the white house, said to be in Harare's Gletwin
suburb, belongs to unpopular Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri.
Photos of the mansion have been
widely shared, including by media watchdog @ZimMediaReview and on Facebook by
H-Metro, which is part of the state Zimpapers stable. There was even bitter
speculation that the money from road fines might have helped pay for the
mansion, which has an opulence that contrasts with the less-than-ideal housing
that many in the capital live in, including rank-and-file members of the
security forces. (If you want evidence of that, just look at the bleak flats
that members of the police support unit live in on the main road outside
Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.)
Chihuri admitted only last week
that some police officers were corrupt. He blamed their parents, the state-run
Chronicle reported.
The police chief told H-Metro
on Friday: "Let the nation be warned that police will not fold hands in
dealing with those misusing social media to settle their issues."
He directed journalists to the
Facebook page of a Harare landscaping firm Graham Williams and Associates
Professional Landscaping. The firm pinned a comment to its page saying that it
refutes the claim that pictures "stolen" from its Facebook page are
of a house belonging to Chihuri.
So if it's not Chihuri's, who
does the house belong to?
Some tweets:
