Zimbabwe health minister fired after corruption charge
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has sacked his health minister, who has been charged with corruption for allegedly illegally awarding a $20m contract for coronavirus testing.
Obadiah Moyo, 66, was arrested in June after an investigation by an anticorruption commission.
Moyo has been released on bail and is scheduled to appear in court on July 31.
Presidential secretary Misheck Sibanda said that Mnangagwa removed Moyo from office for “conduct inappropriate for a government minister”.
Moyo is accused of illegally awarding the $20m contract to Drax Consult, a Dubai-based company created just months ago, to supply personal protective equipment and Covid-19 test kits.
After Zimbabwe’s opposition condemned the deal, the government cancelled all contracts with the company, according to local media reports.
Moyo also faces charges in two other cases, which date back to last year for the supply of general medical equipment to public hospitals. The country has officially recorded more than 700 cases of coronavirus infection and nine deaths.
Separately, 11 of 13 striking nurses arrested in Zimbabwe during a protest for higher pay were freed on bail on Tuesday by a court in the capital Harare, their lawyers said.
Police arrested the group during a demonstration held by scores of nurses at Harare Central Hospital on Monday.
The nurses are on strike to demand a raise, saying their pay has been so eroded by inflation that it can no longer meet their basic needs.