Didymus Mutasa, have blown this in the first six months and have now been allocated a supplementary budget of Z$7 trillion – nearly double the original budget that was supposed to last for 12 months.
It is important that we take a moment to consider the implication of this. Huge numbers are bandied about so much these days that it is difficult to comprehend them. They tend to be meaningless.
But just think about this. There are fewer than 10 million Zimbabweans remaining in the country. More than half of these are children and many of the rest are old and infirm.
Yet the Mugabe government has spent, and further intends to spend, Z$11 trillion spying on less than five million adult citizens in one year. A trillion being a million million, that means Z$2.2 million per person. Even at today’s vastly inflated prices, that is the equivalent of 11 loaves of bread. Per person. For the spy agency.
This is an outrage in a country that can’t afford to feed itself, educate its children or take care of its sick.
Instead of developing the country and its people to take their place in the world of tomorrow, the Zanu (PF) thievocracy is squandering resources on a mind-boggling scale in a desperate attempt to save itself from the logical consequences of decades of greed and bad governance.
The whole situation is beyond belief, especially when one considers what the government is also spending on the army, the air force, the police and the militia – all in order to keep a restless, hungry, frustrated, desperate population in check.
What is even more disturbing is that the money allocated to the CIO is not subject to scrutiny by any official body – not parliament, not the treasury, not the auditor general. The money literally disappears into a bottomless pit.
The future government of Zimbabwe must put an end to this.
Spending money like this is utterly unnecessary. Can no one see that it would actually be a lot cheaper to sort out the political mess, rather than continue to spend such enormous sums on repressing the population?
3.8.2006
0:00
CIO gets Z$11 trillion to spy on 10 million people
Elsewhere in this newspaper we carry a story about the extraordinary expenditure incurred by the CIO in the last six months, as tabled in Parliament last week.
The treasury had allocated the spy agency Z$4.6 trillion for the year. But the men in dark glasses, overseen by the minister in charge,
The treasury had allocated the spy agency Z$4.6 trillion for the year. But the men in dark glasses, overseen by the minister in charge,