FIRE experts yesterday said the fire that gutted a farmhouse at Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa’s son Emmerson Jnr’s Eastclare Farm in Kwekwe on Monday could have been caused by a faulty geyser breaker.
BLESSED MHLANGA STAFF REPORTER
Sources at the Kwekwe Fire Department who attended the scene told NewsDay that Emmerson Jnr had recently commissioned a new geyser at the farmhouse and a loose connection could have triggered the inferno.
“From the information that we gathered, the fire was a result of a faulty breaker which might have developed a loose connection and triggered the fire,” said the source.
Attempts to get official comment were fruitless as Kwekwe mayor Matenda Madzoke said he was yet to be briefed as all senior firefighters were attending a training seminar in Bulawayo.
“The office is manned by juniors who are failing to give me information at the moment since all top management is in Bulawayo. So I cannot give you the details,” said Madzoke.
Meanwhile, sources said the fire had exposed the local authority’s ill-equipped fire department after it dispatched an empty fire tender to put out the blaze at Mnangagwa’s farm.
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The city’s fire tenders were reportedly bailed out by private firm Zimasco which immediately released its fire tenders and managed to put out the fire.
“The small fire tender which we use is only for attending to accidents and it carries no water, we use it to rescue people who will have been trapped in road accidents and nothing else,” the source said.
Midlands police spokesperson Inspector Joel Goko requested time to get information from his Kwekwe counterparts.
Police sources at Kwekwe Central said the value of the destroyed farmhouse was estimated at around $100 000.
“Only two carpets and a stove are the things that are listed to have been destroyed in the inferno and nobody was injured,” a police source said.
The Mnangagwa family referred all questions to Gokwe Kana MP Owen “Mudha” Ncube, who is a close confidant and loyalist to the Justice minister.
However, Ncube was unreachable on his mobile phone.
