The case where a Kadoma-based mining commissioner is suing Mines and Mining Development minister Obert Mpofu for defamation opened at the High Court last week.

Byl Manyange is claiming US$30 000 from Mpofu and the state-owned Chronicle newspaper after the publication of remarks made by the minister at a pass-out parade in Ntabazinduna early last year.

Manyange argues that Mpofu accused him and three other commissioners of corruption and said for that reason, they were supposed to be transferred to other stations. The minister is also being accused of claiming that Manyange and his colleagues were refusing to be transferred.

Manyange told judge Bharat Patel that when he returned to work from a two-months' leave on March 3 last year, he met police officers who had accompanied an official from the ministry's head office in Harare to deliver a letter advising him to surrender his office keys as he had refused to follow instructions.

Patel also heard that a month later police officers visited Manyange's office twice to advise him to surrender the keys and but on both occasions, they did not locate him.

The chief mining officer, Fredson Mabhena and the finance director a Mrs Mwamlowa also visited his offices where they allegedly hired a locksmith from the street to break down the lock to his office door before replacing it with one they had brought.

Mpofu's lawyer, Farai Mutamangira will this week lodge an application seeking dismissal of the case which he says has failed to establish a link between Mpofu's alleged utterances and Manyange's supposed defamation. Mutamangira said Manyange brought up the case in an attempt to scuttle his proposed transfer.

He said this was the reason the suit was lodged two months after the utterances were made. Mutamangira also argued that it was in the public interest for Mpofu to speak against corruption. Through his lawyers, Mpofu is also arguing that in the articles used as exhibits, he did not specifically mention Manyange's name but simply said "some officials."