MIDWEEK REPORTER
BIKITA-Bikita Rural District Council (RDC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Peter Chibhi, who was facing a litany corruption allegations committed suicide after a stormy meeting that was convened by the ZANU PF District Coordinating Committee (DCC) last week on Saturday.
Bikita RDC chairperson Thomas Mataga confirmed the death to The Midweek Watch and said he is deeply saddened by the untimely death of Chibhi.
He told this publication that nothing bad was discussed at the meeting and was shocked by the decision that Chibhi took.
Mataga told the Midweek Watch that the meeting was meant to discuss the 2022 audit report that was released by the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works.
The Midweek Watch however, gathered that Chibhi who attended the CEOs meeting in Bulawayo on Friday came back home on the same day and was summoned to the Saturday meeting that sources say was stormy and was charged with hostility.
The sources said councillors, the DCC and some senior party members including a prominent retired army general bayed for Chibhi’s blood for mismanaging council funds.
The sources told The Midweek Watch that Chibhi stormed out of the meeting in a huff before he went to consume the poisonous substance that later took his life.
He was rushed to Silveira Mission Hospital before being transferred to Masvingo Provincial Hospital where he succumbed to the illness in the wee hours of today.
Chibhi made the headlines last year when he was embroiled in a corruption storm after the procurement of 6 state of the art vehicles for the RDC’s managers and registered them in their personal names.
The sources said the committee demanded to know why Chibhi created a company called Hanyanya Private Limited, a company that was contracted by Bikita RDC to offer services to the council.
The company is accused of siphoning money from the council and workers have gone for six months without salaries.
The meeting that was attended by all Bikita MPs is said to have told Chibhi to put all workers under Hanyanya back to the RDC and they told him to settle their salaries through his own means.
Mataga said burial arrangements are underway and Chibhi is likely to be buried on Wednesday at his homestead in Chemvumi Village under Chief Mkanganwi in Bikita.
