The Zanu (PF) administration hired 7,000 Green Bombers soon after Robert Mugabe lost to Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential election of May 2008. A month later Mugabe “won” a run-off poll from which Tsvangirai withdrew in protest against unprecedented against his supporters.
It is common knowledge that these youths did not meet the minimum educational requirements for the civil service jobs they were purportedly hired to do. Based on the salary scales for junior civil servants it is estimated that the Green Bombers have gobbled $50 million from the taxpayers.
Saviour Kasukuwere, the Minister of Youth and Indigenization, told a Parliamentary committee last year that the youths had been employed as “ward officers to coordinate government programmes in village wards”.
Once employed they set up bases where MDC activists were tortured or murdered. An audit by Ernst & Young found the youths had not been hired in accordance with civil service regulations. No wonder Zanu (PF) tried to resist the audit.
The cash-strapped government cannot afford to carry these scroungers a moment longer. By rights they should be made to pay back their ill-gotten gains. They have stolen from the salaries pot of hard-working civil servants who deserve a decent salary. This is clearly a case for the Fraud Squad – if it still exists. The Anti-Corruption Commission should also look into this sorry saga. It is high time it earned its keep.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga
Mugabe can pay the 7 000 green bombers from the millions he is making from Marange. It took MDC nearly three years to get the green bombers off the pay roll. MDC will not have any such luck in stopping the looting in Marange, they are simply too incompetent to make the difference!