Tsvangirai not involved in RBZ scam: Spokesman

PRESS STATEMENT – The Zanu PF attempts to drag President Tsvangirai’s name into the controversial RBZ Debt Assumption Bill will not wash simply because he is not involved in any scam at all.

The allegations by Marondera East MP Jeremiah Chiwetu that the MDC leader used $3 million of RBZ funds to buy his Highlands House are not only preposterous but defamatory as well.

This is a desperate attempt to equalize the doyen of the democratic struggle in Zimbabwe with those who benefitted from the quasi-fiscal activities of the RBZ that included the provision of tractors, scotch-carts and farming inputs.

The facts of the matter are that President Tsvangirai never received $3 million as alleged by Zanu PF. He never got money from the RBZ. He got a loan from government that is just about $1 million to buy the Highlands house but he had put in $400 000 of his own personal money as a deposit before the payment of the full value of the property.

President Tsvangirai is committed to servicing his own loan from government just as the State should also reimburse him $400 000 of personal funds that was used in buying this government property.

It should not be forgotten that President Tsvangirai spent three of his four years as Prime Minister staying in his own house in Strathaven, transacting the business of the State from his own private residence when the State had an obligation to provide him accommodation befitting his status.

For the three years he stayed in his own house, President Tsvangirai did not make the use of his own house an issue because material benefits have never driven his politics.

President Tsvangirai supports the position of the MDC MPs in parliament that anyone who owes the RBZ should pay back so that we do not burden innocent Zimbabweans with debts they know nothing about.

Whoever owes the RBZ should pay. If there was anyone who benefitted from the RBZ funds, then they must pay back and not saddle innocent Zimbabweans who are surviving on less than $1 a day and struggling to make ends meet.

The decision to make Zimbabweans pay for individuals who owe the RBZ is arrant nonsense and no amount of defamatory allegations against President Tsvangirai will divert the MDC focus from the fact that good citizens who owe the RBZ must assume their own debts.

President Tsvangirai fully supports the voice of the party’s MPs in Parliament who have stood firm in defence of the innocent Zimbabweans they represent; Zimbabweans who must now suffer on behalf of Zanu PF fat cats who fleeced the central bank.

Luke Tamborinyoka
Presidential Spokesperson
Movement for Democratic Change