Calls For Impala To Be Put On Sanctions Get Louder

A Europe-based Zimbabwean journalist, Simba Chikanza, has added his voice to growing calls to have Impala Car Rental sanctioned by the West for its alleged “links to abductions and torture of students”.

The car hire services company is under fire for supplying a vehicle to suspected State security agents who abducted journalist Mduduzi Mathuthu’s nephew, Tawanda Muchehiwa, a second year journalism student, accusing him of being one of the July 31 protests coordinators.

He was also questioned about Mathuthu’s whereabouts as they are keen to interview him.

Impala is also in the eye of a storm concerning the severe beating and torture of Zinasu president Takudzwa Ngadziore, who demonstrated against the company’s refusal to reveal details of the person(s) that hired the car used in Muchehiwa’s abduction.

Ngadziore is currently out on bail on charges of participating in an unsanctioned demonstration.

“As a Europe based journalist, I advise the international community to not only avoid the services of the human abduction linked Impala Car Rental company, but to sanction it so no tourist ever uses it, until they account for all the kidnappings plus the torture of Takudzwa Ngadziore,” he said.

Chikanza’s lobby comes barely a day after SADC’s Anti-Sanctions Day, a day set aside to call for the unconditional lifting of the embargo against Zimbabwe.

President Mnangagwa has called the targeted sanctions a “weapon of massive destruction” and blamed them for his government’s inability to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Nhau/Indaba