Source: ‘Mugabe needs $8m for ED’s head’ – NewsDay Zimbabwe
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF needs $8 million to hold an extraordinary congress aimed at firing Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, drawing widespread condemnation from the opposition.
BY BLESSED MHLANGA
People’s Democratic Party spokesperson Jacob Mafume yesterday said the succession wars in Zanu PF were being unhelpful and now putting a premium on the economy and government business.
“How can they justify the use of that kind of money to fire just one man? Why can’t they ask him nicely to retire for a fraction of that money? The whole nation cannot be made to dance to the sound of madness at such cost. It is clear that Mugabe has given his wife the Presidency, so why try to force the whole nation to act as if it has agreed to that?” he said.
Faced with succession pressure and the need to push out his longstanding ally, Mugabe will be calling for a special congress which appears poised to push out Mnangagwa and replace him with a woman Vice-President.
MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu said if voters needed any good reason to remove Mugabe and his party in the 2018 general elections, they should look no further than costly rallies and the $8 million extraordinary congress that Zanu PF would be funding while the economy burns.
“You can be assured that the sum of $8 million will be coerced from financially struggling parastatals and some other such businesses,” he said.
“Instead of running around to raise money for our struggling public hospitals, the Zanu PF regime is more interested in holding a grand feasting and praise-and-worship function disguised as an extraordinary congress. People will be competing to heap more praises on Robert Mugabe at this function.”
Zanu PF secretary for finance Obert Mpofu said Zanu PF would embark on a $8 million fundraising drive to finance the extraordinary congress.
Zanu PF has already spent an estimated $20 million holding Presidential youth interface rallies in eight provinces. It still needs $5 million to host two more rallies in Harare and Bulawayo and a further $3 million to be funded by the Ministry of Higher Education to host over 70 000 students for a rally with Mugabe.
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