Charamba Dismisses Muguti’s Tint Ban as Legally Baseless

Presidential Spokesperson George Charamba has rejected the recent directive by Provincial Affairs and Devolution Secretary Tafadzwa Muguti, which sought to outlaw tinted windows on both public and private vehicles.

The controversial ban, announced earlier this week, was presented as a measure to curb drug trafficking and other criminal activities allegedly facilitated by the use of tinted vehicles. Muguti cited a disturbing incident involving the sexual assault of a Grade 7 student inside a tinted commuter minibus at Harare’s Rezende bus rank as one of the catalysts for the move.

However, Charamba took to social media — posting under his handle “dhonzamusoro007” on X (formerly Twitter) — to refute Muguti’s pronouncement. He stated that the directive had no legal foundation and did not originate from a properly authorized source.

“There is no basis in fact or law for the announcement attributed to Secretary Muguti. Please disregard this miscommunication from an unauthorized office and officer,” Charamba wrote, alongside a video of Muguti announcing the supposed policy.

Despite the apparent clash between government officials, no further clarification was offered on the internal confusion. Charamba emphasized that his response was intended to rectify a misstep and correct the public narrative.

In his initial announcement, Muguti had declared a sweeping ban on tinted windows for all public and private vehicles, with exceptions only for government VIP and security vehicles, or factory-standard tinting. He claimed the decision was in response to rising criminal activity involving unregulated transport operators like Mushikashika, and incidents such as armed robberies and the aforementioned sexual assault case.

Muguti went as far as instructing law enforcement officers to forcibly remove tints from non-compliant vehicles or impound them altogether.

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