By Lance Guma
The Minister of Public Works, Gabbuza Joel Gabuza, has confirmed to SW Radio Africa that a house being renovated for use by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in the Highlands suburb of Harare is now complete.
Speaking on the Question Time programme this Wednesday Gabuza said: “That is a government house, we have completed it. It was under construction by Public Works and we engaged some private contractors whom we worked with, and supervised them and we raised the tenders and everything was done above board.”
Explaining how the project was managed Gabuza added: “Initially we did the evaluation of the property that was in existence before we did the renovations. We negotiated the price with the owner and we acquired the property through the Ministry of Finance to fund the acquisition.”
Gabuza could not confirm if the PM and his new wife Elizabeth Macheka had moved in yet saying: “We have done the handover of the property to the beneficiary, being the Prime Ministers office, so any time they are free to occupy it. It’s complete, it’s a government house, we have put a GP (government property) number on it.”
Asked about allegations that money had personally been given to the Prime Minister for renovations to the house Gabuza told us: “That is not part of the property that I am aware about. The property that we have constructed for the Prime Minister, the money was given to the Public Works Ministry to construct.”
Gabuza said they had, “done the construction. If the Prime Minister was given any other money for the property, it should be a different property but as far as we are concerned we were given the finances to buy the property, renovate the property and we have handed over the property to the Prime Minister’s office.” SW Radio Africa
To listen to the full interview with Public Works Minister Gabbuza Joel Gabuza: Click Here
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