Leaked Audio Exposes Sen. Ishumael Zhou ’s unethical spree of attacks on government official

…..as comrades within the constituency show him a middle finger!

In a shocking turn of events, a leaked audio recording has revealed disability advocate Sen. Ishumael Zhou’s attempts to undermine a leading policy, international development and disability expert, Dr. Christine Peta, who is also the National Director of Disability Affairs. The recording, which appears to be a phone call between Sen.Zhou and fellow advocate Ms Vongai Mutokoti, sheds light on Zhou’s dirty tactics of capturing the disability constituency to his personalized agenda which has been under scrutiny for long.

Sen. Zhou is on record trying to desperately paint Dr Peta black with baseless allegations and questioning why she is the Director of Disability Affairs in Zimbabwe, yet her decorated educational and professional biography speaks for itself. He struggled to convince the fellow comrade to turn against Dr. Peta and this did not go down well with the war victims representative Ms Mutokoti who immediately called Sen.Zhou to order .

Mutokoti reminded Sen.Zhou that it was their obligation to work with government and support the cause in unity . She made it clear that she was not prepared to be hired into a fight with the Government of Zimbabwe or any of it’s officials for no clear reasons.

Sen.Zhou could be heard stammering and desperately dropping names that include that of H .E. Cde ED Mnangagwa, Minister Paul Mavima, Minister July Moyo, as people who are literally pleading for his support as he is the mightier one, whose support they cannot afford to lose.

This however comes at a time when the nation has been brought back to the 2023 chaotic disability constituency elections where the majority of the members didn’t have a say in the elections following a well orchestrated rigging system backed by the British NGO, Sightsavers, which literary positioned Sen. Ishumael Zhou and Sen. Anna Shiri in the Zimbabwean Senate .

Sen. Zhou is desperately heard bargaining for support from the war veterans cluster by promising them a possibility of more senatorial seats in parliament come 2028. He boasted of being in total control of the disability constituency and had powers to appoint and remove anyone from any position. The war veterans cluster was warned of missing favors to the upcoming disability “Commission ” which Zhou and company are dreaming of ahead of the disability bill.

Well it is clear that Sen.Zhou is confident that the flawed disability bill will still go through parliament and additional processes so it becomes the disability law of the land. To that end he is beginning to parcel out positions in the “Commission.”

This leaked recording has laid bare Zhou’s apparent efforts to undermine Dr. Peta’s brilliant work for what appears to be Zhou’s own personal interests, rather than the broader interests of the disability community. Death threats to Dr. Peta from the Ishumael Zhou and Annah camp have become the order of the day and she now lives in fear for her life. All this raises concerning questions about the motivations and tactics of some disability advocates. Of course Sen. Zhou made several reference to Sightsavers in his leaked audio but the biggest question that follows is whose interests is the senator serving, who does he really report to. Do his powers as a senator have demarcations,if so to what extent!

It is high time Zimbabweans begin to introspect the roles and responsibilities of such stakeholders. The roles of NGOs and Non-state Actors in the country. One will be tempted to believe that, it is because of these distortions why the PVO bill was developed and why it should be passed into law as soon as possible.