Mugabe's spin doctor splashes cash ahead of polls

Mugabe's spin doctor splashes cash ahead of polls

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S Information Minister Jonathan Moyo has poured over $100 million in a space of a week in the Tsholotsho constituency in rural Matabeleland as he intensifies efforts to buy his way into the people's hearts ahead of key parliamentary elections next March.

Moyo who comes from Tsholotsho, recently made donations totalling $125 million to various institutions in the constituency where he has declared himself as the sole Zanu PF candidate long before the party's primary elections are conducted. It is believed the Zanu PF national chairman John Nkomo has an interest in the sea.

Moyo donated over 700 blankets worth $90 million to several health institutions and followed that a day later with a donation of two computers and a printer worth $22,1 million to Tsholotsho hospital.

A few days later the minister followed with another donation of a computer and printer all worth $13 million to Tsholotsho police.

However questions have arisen on the source of the funds being doled out by Moyo. Opposition officials want to know if the funds are personal or state funds.

Sources say the total amount of money Moyo has spent in the constituency since 2002 could be running into billions.

A former Zanu PF legislator who lost the 2000 parliamentary election but will now contest in Matabeleland South province said if the funds were state funds it was unfair for Moyo alone to use the funds to his advantage.

"We are soon going to lobby the party's national chairman, John Nkomo, to investigate where that money is coming from because at the frequency it is being dished out it definitely can't be personal money and if it is government money then we should also benefit from the campaign funds," said the former MP.

Max Mnkandla, the president of Zimbabwe Liberators Peace Initiative (ZLPI) said the funds were unlikely to be from government, adding that if that was the case, then they were ill-gotten funds.

Mnkandla said the people of Tsholotsho had indicated that they wanted national party chairman, John Nkomo, to represent them in the 2005 parliamentary elections, which explains Moyo's antagonism towards Nkomo.

"The people of Tsholotsho have said they want John Nkomo to stand for them in Tsholotsho but Jonathan Moyo is bulldozing his way into the constituency," Mnkandla said.

Mtoliki Sibanda, the opposition MDC MP for Tsholotsho, urged a probe into Moyo's donations.

"The money he is dishing out is clearly not his, he is abusing the Presidential coffers by virtue of being in the President's office but what should be investigated," Sibanda said.

The frequency of Moyo's visists to Tsholotsho have increased in recent weeks, and so has been his benevolence.

Apart from donations made in July, this year alone, Moyo donated medical equipment worth $28 million before donating 1000 bags of cement worth $40 million to various schools in the constituency.

He donated a further $2 million to cover funeral costs for a chief who died in Tsholotsho two months ago.

The minister has also established what he termed multi-million dollar scholarship programme for disadvantaged children in the constituency. Just last week he launched a football tournament in Tsholotsho to the tune of $15 million using 'personal funds.'
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