Bingu fast track refurbishment of retirement home in Zimbabwe

bingu.jpgBingu wa Mutharika
Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has assigned the country's High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, Benson Tembo to head a team which is looking at the refurbishment of a house at his Zimbabwe Bineth farm which he wants to use as a retirement home.

Another work of construction is being done at Ndata Farm in Thyolo, his
home district but the President is reported to have a change of heart
to consider Zimbabwe farmhouse in case he loses May 19 elections.

Mutharika faces great challenge from John Tembo who is contesting as
joint presidential candidate of MCP-UDF opposition alliance backed by
former president Bakili Muluzi.

Refurbishment is being done on fast pace because we are racing against
time. The President want to use the house as a retirement home if he is
ousted from power in May which looks likely, said an official at
Malawi High Commission in Zimbabwe.

The farm is just outside city of Kadoma, on the Gokwe-Sanyati Road.
Malawi government through the High Commission is paying for the cost of
the project.

Workers at the farm through an official at the High Commission told
Nyasa Times that security at the farm has been increased during the
project.

The workers said the hill next to the farm and surrounding areas were
being patrolled Zimbabwe security forces. Mutharika and Zimbabwe's
President Robert Mugabe are political allies.

Mutharika reportedly bought the farm in 1994 and named it Bineth. Bin,
is taken from his name, Bingu and eth from the name of his Zimbabwean
deceased wife, Ethel.

Tembo who is posing a threat to defeat Mutharika in the polls has
however said Mutharika will be asked to account how he has accumulated
wealth in the five years in power.

If we cannot ask him now, we will ask him where he got money to buy
vehicles, including a bus in which he sits alone like a conductor. In
1999, he had nothing, Tembo told a political meeting in Lilongwe last
Sunday.

Nyasa Times

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