Zimbabwe’s coalition government is spending more on foreign travel compared to essential services such as medical assistance for civil servants, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday.
Foreign travel by President Robert Mugabe and members of his bloated cabinet chewed up $28.4 million or 22.5 percent of the $126.4 million allocated for ministries’ operational expenses between January and October this year.
This translated to nearly five percent of total expenditure of $640.8 million incurred by the coalition government up to October and was equivalent to the amount spent on capital projects during the same period.
$8.1 million was spent on health services offered to the 60,000-plus civil servants during the first nine months of 2009, the records showed.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti said last week that he would cut foreign travel by government ministers in 2010.
He said with effect from January 2010, business travel for ministers and their officials would be limited to allocated amounts which would be made available monthly.
A strong emphasis would be on the key issues of education, health and social services and the continuation of a strict and disciplined macro-economic stabilization program introduced this year.
Mugabe and his ministers have been known to crisscross the globe on supposedly government business although nothing seems to come out of the trips.
The Zimbabwean leader is barred from traveling to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States under restrictions imposed by these countries in retaliation for alleged human rights abuses by his government since 2000.
Source African Press Agency
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