The weekly Independent newspaper revealed last week that President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputies Arthur Mutambara and Thoko Khupe, Vice President Joice Mujuru would receive golden handshakes running into hundreds of thousands of dollars. The 35 cabinet ministers and 18 deputy ministers would each get US$30 000, residential stands in affluent suburbs, three luxury cars including Mercedes Benz and top-of-the-range SUVs before leaving office.
But the finance minister categorically denied this: “It’s total undiluted nonsense. There is nothing like that. Nothing like that.”
Biti told SW Radio Africa this matter has not been discussed in cabinet, reiterating: “It’s absolute nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. The President stays in the State House that is owned by the State. The Prime Minister stays in a residence which is owned by the State. I don’t know about other officials, but the State House is a State house and a private residence is a private residence. If there are agreements to buy back I don’t know about those but the fact of the matter is that there is no exit package that is going to be paid to anyone. That is absolutely nonsense.”
He said it is surprising that no journalist has ever asked him about this issue of ‘golden handshakes’ even though he gives monthly meetings and press briefings on the state of the economy.
“I have seen a recent tendency of just writing articles without substantiation. The other day I was complaining about an article that said the ‘government is raiding companies for electoral funds’, which is absolute nonsense as well. We issued two bonds, voluntarily to two companies – Old Mutual and NSSA and that’s all. You just get tired,” the Finance Minister added.
The news of the exit packages has been slammed by many Zimbabweans, with some writing on social networks saying the inclusive government, which has constantly said is broke and has no money to fund the elections and is struggling to provide basic services, had betrayed the people.
MDC-99 President Job Sikhala, who was the first to expose this story earlier this month, said he stands by his story and challenged the authorities to arrest him if this is a lie.
Biti insisted that the allegations are ‘lies and perjury’ adding: “I am a Christian and a lawyer and I will not put my career at risk. This is absolute nonsense.”
But Sikhala said what he revealed was the truth and that President Mugabe approved a cabinet motion by the Minister of Water Resources, Sipepa Nkomo, to have exit packages.
“This is only Tendai Biti’s shameless dispense of the truth when he knows that cabinet ministers have already received the exit packages.
Sikhala added: “If it is a lie I challenge him to put in place an independent commission of enquiry into these allegations and if they come out clean I will celebrate this.”
He said some ministers have shown him transactions of money they allegedly received from the ministry of finance, “so Tendai Biti must be ashamed of himself if he defends such kind of greediness. I am really surprised with him because he is the last person I expected to defend this.”
The MDC-99 leader said the government should have challenged the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper if the story was false.
Some government ministers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, denied they had received payments. They said they were due to receive housing allowances, especially to help ministers who lived outside Harare, but that the scheme did not materialise because the government has no money.
Biti confirmed this saying: “The law obliges me to pay housing allowances for ministers and MPs but I have not been able to pay those.”
The sources said initially some ministers were staying in hotels but the Ministry of Finance failed to pay the hotel bills. It was then the cabinet decided to rent flats and government was expected to pay rent for the ministers who lived outside Harare. But this didn’t work, also resulting in some ministers being evicted after the government again failed to make the rent payments, resulting in government reinstating housing allowances for all ministers, as in the Zimbabwe-dollar days. “But no-one is receiving this allowance and a scheme to apply for CBZ commercial loans with the government as guarantors has also failed to materialise,” revealed one of the ministers.
Meanwhile, Sikhala accused political opponents of ‘petrol bombing’ his shopping complex in Chitungwiza at 1am Tuesday. He said ZESA authorities were called to the scene and confirmed that it was not an electrical fault that destroyed his shop. “If there were kids playing with fire at 1 am at my complex when we know that even at that time witches would have retired to bed. So this was no accident.” – SW Radio Africa News
Post published in: News