By Paul Nyathi| The Zimbabwe First Party has accused Coalition Of Democrats, CODE, leader Elton Mangoma for conniving with a desperate former member to steal the party into his coalition in order to solicit funding.
In an interview with ZimEye.com on Wednesday morning, ZimFirst founding President Dr Maxwell Zeb Shumba accused Mangoma of conniving with his former Deputy Derrick Lupemba to retain the party name in the CODE after the party officially withdrew from the coalition.
Dr Shumba indicated that the party dismissed Lupemba from his position and the party on the 28th of February for gross incompetence and failure to account for party funds.
According to Dr Shumba the party further withdrew from the Coalition of Democrats on the 3rd of March raising concerns against the coalition leader Mangoma.
“When we pulled out of CODE, Mangoma immediately connived with Lupemba who we had dismissed and they produced a statement to the effect that I had been dismissed from the party and the party was continuing in the CODE coalition,” said Dr Shumba.
Dr Shumba insisted that ZimFirst is officially no longer a member of CODE while Lupemba is also no longer a CODE official who is not authorised to represent the party in any capacity.
“Lupemba left our campaign team on February 28, 2018 after the Campaign decided that his second VP position was no longer necessary,” said Dr Shumba.
“ZimFirst is actually battling theft of its intellectual property by CODE that sees the use of the ZimFirst name as a lifeline to their sinking ship,” he added.
“ZimFirst will not be part of the CODE launch and anyone purporting to be representing ZimFirst will be liable to be sued in a court of law,” said Shumba.
Dr Shumba went on to accuse Mangoma of deliberately funding the desperate Lupemba who had been surviving on funds from ZimFirst.
“We used to fund Lupemba for all his needs and when we stopped giving him money, Mangoma hijacked him and started giving him money just to have him keep ZimFirst name in the coalition,” said Shumba.
The former MDC-T American Province Chairman rubbished his alleged dismissal from the party by Lupemba.
“Dereck Lupemba is like a maggot after a hearty cow dung meal telling the bull to vacate the kraal. Does the bull need to pay attention?” said Shumba.
Contacted for a comment, Mangoma said that CODE had nothing to do with the internal fights within coalition partners.
“That one is an internal matter of ZimFirst and as CODE we are not involved in it at all,” said Mangoma.
“As far as we know, ZimFirst provided us with correspondence indicating that Shumba had been dismissed from the party and Lupemba is the new principal and we are working very well with him,” said Mangoma.
Meanwhile, ZimFirst has since written to Mangoma telling him to stop using their name in the coalition as the party is no longer a member of the coalition.
“ZimFirst has noted with disgust your continued arrogance ignoring our position that ZimFirst officially left CODE and any association with our name liable to prosecution in the court of law,” said the party in a letter to Mangoma.
“Let me point out that your demonstrated arrogance and underhand activities has left us with no option but seek legal remedy through the court of law.”