HARARE The formation of Zimbabwes new power-sharing government appears to have done little to change the culture of extravagance amid revelations that the ruling coalition has spent more on globe-trotting than on the welfare of ordinary civil servants. Foreign travel by President Robert Mugabe and members of his bloated cabinet chewed up US$28.4 million or 22.5 percent of the US$126.4 million allocated for ministries operational expenses between January and October this year.
This translated to nearly five percent of total expenditure of US$640.8 million incurred by the coalition government up to October and was equivalent to the amount spent on capital projects during the same period.
A paltry US$8.1 million was spent on health services offered to the 60 000-plus civil servants during the first nine months of 2009.
The above levels of funding for operations and maintenance are skewed towards foreign travel and, hence, crowding out other essential public services, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said, promising to act on the globe-trotting.
Biti, who is from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirais MDC party, said with effect from January 2010, business travel for ministers and their officials would be limited to allocated amounts which would be made available monthly.
He said from next year strong emphasis would be on the key issues of education, health and social services and the continuation of a strict and disciplined macro-economic stabilisation programme introduced this year.
Mugabe and his ministers have been known to criss-cross the world on supposedly government business although nothing always comes out of the foreign trips.
The Zimbabwean strongman has regularly commandeered Air Zimbabwe planes to take him and his entourage on shopping trips to Asia and other countries.
He is barred from travelling to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States under restrictions imposed by these countries in retaliation to alleged human rights abuses by his government since 2000.
Post published in: News