Emmanuel Chimwanda

Emmanuel Chimwanda was a former Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission Commissioner, Zimbabwe Republic Police Senior Assistant Commissioner, and MDC Alliance Secretary for Security and Defense.

Career

In June 2019, Chimwanda was appointed as MDC Alliance party secretary for defence in Nelson Chamisa's National Executive Council replacing Giles Mutsekwa. In 2009, he was appointed by then MDC leader and State Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to the post of director of security in the prime minister’s office.

As a police officer, Chimwanda is best remembered for the arrest of the late notorious war veterans leader Chenjerai Hunzvi. Hunzvi had led Zanu-PF supporters and war veterans on a violent rampage targeting opposition supporters in Bikita during the 2000 elections, in which the MDC, contesting for the first time since formation a year ago, whittled down Zanu PF’s parliamentary dominance.

He left the police force insisting he would rather leave with his principles intact than take orders to allow some violent Zanu PF supporters to brutalise fellow citizens with impunity.^[1] Chimwanda once served as a Commissioner of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission.

Controversies

In September 2013, he appeared in court facing charges of breaching the Official Secrets Act. Chimwanda allegedly gave classified information to officials in former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's office in a case in which the Commission was investigating Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo.

He allegedly gave classified information to four staffers of the former prime minister’s office regarding the corruption scandal.

Chimwanda appeared in court facing charges of impersonation, illegal possession of articles for criminal use and breaching the Official Secrets Act.

The state claimed that Chimwanda irregularly acquired a criminal docket that accused former Harare special interest councillor Charles Nyachowe of fraud.

Chimwanda unlawfully abused his office as a commissioner in the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission by taking documents to Thabani Mpofu, Warship Dumba, Felix Matsinde, and Mehluli Tshuma, who were research officers in Tsvangirai's office.

The former premier's staffers were also arrested on separate charges of impersonation and obtaining information on several ministers’ alleged corruption in violation of the Official Secrets Act.^[2]