HARARE – Vice President Kembo Mohadi is on the ropes as a growing sex scandal threatens to upend his political career.
Mohadi, 71, missed a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the second major diary event he has failed to attend after a no-show at last Saturday’s burial of ZIPRA independence war hero Moses Griffiths Mpofu at the National Heroes Acre.
Mohadi has been engulfed by a major sex scandal after Zimbabweans heard him on leaked phone calls – released by ZimLive – inviting a married woman for sex in his government office and arranging sex trysts in hotels, including with a married security agent who works in his office.
The leak came after the vice president’s phone was “cloned”, according to Paul Damasane, the permanent secretary in his office.
Senior government sources say the former Beitbridge East MP has told his colleagues that he is considering resigning.
A top Zanu PF insider said: “His phone was compromised and he seems very concerned about what tomorrow will bring, beyond the sex scandals. Only he knows the true degree of the breach of his personal privacy, and he wants to stop the bleeding.”
ZimLive understands Mohadi met President Emmerson Mnangagwa and second Vice President Constantino Chiwenga before Tuesday’s cabinet meeting as the three men discussed his political future.
A source said Mnangagwa has offered Mohadi some support, and has told him that he should decide on his future – saving him the humiliation of a sacking which would cause tremors in Zanu PF.
As cabinet sat, Mohadi was holed up in his Munhumutapa Building office where there was an air of resignation among his staff that his political career is drawing to a close.
The main opposition MDC Alliance has demanded Mohadi’s resignation, accusing him of conduct “manifestly inconsistent with the office he holds.”
Civic society organisations have petitioned the Gender Commission to launch an urgent investigation into Mohadi’s conduct. The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said it was “troubled by the allegations… which evidently implicate a culture of abuse of office and power by a public official for sexual advantage.”
Mohadi became vice president in December 2017 following a military coup that ousted former President Robert Mugabe and collapsed his government. Mohadi was promoted from defence minister, a portfolio he held briefly.
Previously, he served in the portfolios of home affairs minister between August 2002 and July 2015, and state security minister from 2015 until November 2017 when the military ended Mugabe’s 37-year rule.
The scandal erupted after Mohadi was confronted by a Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) agent at his Glen Lorne home, angry after learning that the vice president was cavorting with his wife, another secret agent working in his office.
Jacob Mumpande demanded that his wife, Abbigal Muleya, be transferred from Mohadi’s office.
Abbigal was heard on a call asking Mohadi if he had taken a sex booster ahead of their meeting later at a lodge.
Mohadi also romped with Chervaughn Choeni, whose husband Martin Chabuka has filed for divorce after hearing her agree to have sex with the vice president in his office.
On the phone call, whose recording was leaked to ZimLive, Mohadi is heard asking Choeni: “So, when do you give it to me?”
The young woman, who appeared to have been financially benefiting from the affair, told Mohadi she had earlier been to his office and had “actually come with an intention of giving it.”
“So you want to give it to me in the office?” Mohadi asks.
“Yes,” replies Choeni.
“Okay,” Mohadi says. “There is no any other place, we’ll have to do it in the office.”
Mohadi was also revealed to have asked for sex from a woman who approached him seeking financial assistance to go through college. He invited the woman to his hotel room in Bulawayo late one night, but she was already home with her parents.
A friend told ZimLive that the woman, whose identity we are protecting, was tired of Mohadi’s sex demands after graduating from college. She felt she had “paid her dues.”
On Tuesday, we released another recording of the vice president talking to a woman, in which she asks the woman to bear him a child. The woman denies ever promising him a baby, telling the vice president: “A child will be problematic.”
“So we just fuck then?” Mohadi says, to which the woman, whose identity we are also not revealing, responds: “Yes.”
Mohadi divorced Tambudzani Muleya, his wife of more than 30 years, in 2017. They have six grown-up children.
In 2018, Mohadi stepped out with his new lover Juliette Mutavhatsindi with whom he attended a series of state events until in late 2019 when she suddenly disappeared by his side.
