Bumbling Holland throws spanners into PM’s works

PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday

SEKAI Holland’s incredulous claims that millions of dollars in hard currency are being spent on a secret Zanu PF militia are likely to stoke up tension in the fledgling inclusive government in Harare, and also throw the Prime Minister’s ongoing fundraising offensive in the west into jeopardy.

Holland, a senior member of Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party and also, ironically, Minister for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration, told the BBC’s Mark Thomson that 39,000 militiamen “working inside the civil service and outside” were being paid a wage of $100 (£62) A DAY to beat up MDC supporters, in the event of an election.

Her tactless allegations contradict the message that Tsvangirai has been promoting on his tour of Europe and the United States where he hopes to break deep-seated scepticism of the inclusive government’s viability and its commitment to carry through full-throttled political and economic reforms.

Holland’s outlandish claims mean that up to US$3.9m of public money is being dished out DAILY to the former ruling party’s private militia. This is not credible.

The figures quoted provide a jarring contrast to the widely acknowledged penury of the state treasury. The inclusive government is struggling to pay salaries for its 150,000-strong civil service.

We know the poverty of this government because only last month, Finance Minister Tendai Biti revealed that up to 70 per cent of the government’s monthly revenue of US$174 million went towards paying salaries.

The civil service last month threatened to strike over low wages arguing that the US$100 allowance that civil servants are getting is falling far short of paying for basic commodities and utility bills.

In her interview, a video of which is currently up on the BBC website, Holland also claimed that recalcitrant hardliners in President Robert Mugabe’s party are adding their names to a lengthening assassination list.

“We are told that they do have a list of people that they will kill,” she said, adding that members of her party were receiving threatening phone calls everyday. She provides no names – and we are yet to hear of a police probe into a single telephone threat, which you would expect given that this is a daily occurrence, if you believe Holland.

Tsvangirai, who is currently in the US where he is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama on Friday, was sucked into the vortex of Holland’s claims and had to parry away inquisitions from the press on the assassinations allegations.

“If there is anyone who would be afraid of being assassinated, it would be me,” Tsvangirai, said in Washington D.C. “I am sure that there is no such threat.”

In a rather baffling about-turn, Holland now denies ever making the claims and accuses the BBC of gross fabrication. Her attempts to squirm out of the incriminating interview will not have been helped by the fact that a video record of the interview is currently on the BBC website.

This whole episode begs the question: What was she thinking?