Zimbabwe Defense Chief to Resign

Enos Nkala, one of Zimbabwe’s most powerful politicians, said Friday that he had offered his resignation as defense minister after lying to a judicial commission investigating black market car deals.

“The only action left is that I should quit,” he announced in a dramatic finale to two months of public hearings by the commission. His words drew cheers and applause from the public gallery.

The burly 57-year-old defense minister is a key member of President Robert Mugabe’s Cabinet and the Politburo of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party, which he helped to found.

He told the commission, headed by Judge Wilson Sandura, that he submitted his resignation from the Cabinet and from his party positions Thursday night to acting President Simon Muzenda, standing in while Mugabe is in the Netherlands.

His downfall was the direct result of persistent questioning by the commission into the sale of a Toyota Cressida sedan by his wife.

Zimbabweans have been avidly following the so-called Willowgate scandal, first unearthed by the press last year and named after Harare’s Willowvale car assembly plant.

The Sandura commission, set up by Mugabe to probe allegations of black market car deals by top politicians who had priority access to scarce new vehicles, has to draft a report to the president by March 31.

Public disclosure of illegal profiteering and confessions of false evidence by ministers have savaged the government’s prestige, but the commission’s ruthless questioning of the powerful has been hailed as a triumph for democracy.

“The involvement of senior members of government in the Willowgate affair has tarnished our leaders’ images, but the Sandura commission has improved the status of Zimbabwe internationally,” the weekly Financial Gazette said Friday.