Government blows scarce foreign currency on luxurious cars (10-08-07)

President Robert Mugabe in power has taken delivery of the latest state of the art Toyota Yaris Sedans.

The acquisitions for the CIO’s come at a time when the government is in urgent need of foreign currency to import fuel, maize and electricity at the same time meet pressing financial obligations like debts.

Authoritative sources said: “The state of the art vehicles have – for the meantime – been allocated to the Provincial Intelligence Officers (PIO) normally in charge of provinces and Divisional Intelligence Officers (DIO).”

In Bulawayo, the state of the art Toyota Yaris Sedans cars for the CIO’s were delivered a fortnight ago. It could not independently verify the number of Toyota Yaris Sedans each province was allocated.

A google search on the new CIO vehicles revealed that the government blew billions of dollars acquiring the new CIO cars with each Toyota Yaris Sedan going for over $2 billion.

According to the google search on the internet, a Toyota Yaris is a 3 or 4 door, passenger family coupe, or family sedan, available in three trims ranging from the Toyota Yaris 3 door liftback, Toyota Yaris Sedan and the Toyota Yaris S.

Didymus Mutasa, the State Security Minister under which the CIO’s fall under could neither deny nor confirm that the state has acquired state of the art vehicles for the feared state security agents.

“Who told you that,” Mutasa said. “As Minister responsible I cannot confirm all that you come across and after all, I don’t even know whether you are the person you say you are and whether you have a press card or not…I might find comments all over the world.”

Mutasa later refused to comment over the phone saying “I can only talk to you face to face in my office.” The government has been blowing billions for the agency like buying sophisticated jamming equipment.

Recent reports say the feared state security agents got hefty salary increments to cushion them against the country’s economic woes. Apart from salaries, CIO agents also get generous entertainment allowances- CAJ News.