Former President Mugabe’s son in law, Simba Chikore has revealed his involvement in the Zimbabwe Airways saga. He told The Standard in...
Former President Mugabe’s son in law, Simba Chikore has
revealed his involvement in the Zimbabwe Airways saga.
He told The Standard in an interview :”After being assigned
to Air Zimbabwe, the minister and his colleagues wanted to have a way to bring
in to the country new assets that were not involved in big challenges, for
example, in debt.
We didn’t want to have an airline that is impounded. We
didn’t want to have an airline, which had such stigma. Zimbabweans were calling
their own airline Mazarura and things like this and so on and so forth.
So the minister’s vision was to create an airline that
everyone is proud of, an operation that can go anywhere in the world. Why do we
not fly direct to New York? Why do we not fly direct to London? Why do we not
have our own airline that goes from here to China even though we have some big
business between the two countries?
It’s because of those things, sanctions, stigma,
unprofessionalism and all these kind of things. So what better way to do it
properly and the way the minister decided to do it was standard
internationally.
What they decided to do was to have those planes with a
different ownership.
He was asked if the Mugabes owned the airline. He said :”The
interest in the extent of the former president was his simple support to also want
a good airline. If you think back he chose to always fly the national airline
so that he could put money in it.
In fact, it survived that long because he chose to always
use the national airline. I was there as COO. I saw all the numbers and I know
exactly how they function.
We would survive because today he is going there and we get
a little bit of money. Those flights were paid up front in cash, that’s what
sustained the airline.
Just like today, His Excellency President [Emmerson]
Mnangagwa is supporting the airline. If the presidents stop flying Air
Zimbabwe, watch and see what will happen, there will not be one flight.
That’s the extent to which we can say the former president
was involved. When you talk about me, I am a professional and I am not going to
go around trying to defend myself, people will know the truth and people are
smart enough.
If people are interested they can go to the registrar of
companies to see who owns the company, they’ll see the CR40, they’ll see the
CR6, they will see the stakeholder, and my name is not there.
The company itself belongs to the government of Zimbabwe,
the proof is there and it’s public knowledge. I don’t have to go loud and say
they are not my planes, in fact where would I get that kind of money to buy the
aircraft?
He was asked what his role was in Zimbabwe Airways. He said
:”For Zimbabwe Airways under the leadership of the honourable minister, we
sourced for aircraft, we negotiated the purchase price, we did the maintenance
that is required to make them brand new.
What I mean by brand new is doing the required checks like
C-check, which is done every two years so it’s pretty much broke down and put
back together again so it’s a new aircraft, it’s a reset button.
We created the airline, the formation of it. We created the
systems, we went and created relationships with Boeing, these are industry
trade type of relationships that are necessary.
We have with us experts from AITA, IOSA to centre the
airline properly because the moment you take off you are going to be under audit
to make sure that this airline is not like Air Zimbabwe that is banned in other
places.
We are making sure we do things properly, you have got the
skilled labour, you have got the bells and whistles, you have got computers,
you have got all the correct maintenance, you have got all the things that are
required to be called a viable airline that would be allowed to fly to Europe,
that would be allowed to fly into the United States.
This is what we did, we did the hiring, we did the
interviews, we did the finance, we came up with the designs, we did the
engineering orders, and we did everything that was required.
He was also asked if he was the Mugabes pilot. “Absolutely
not. The only extent to which I flew the former first family was by assignment
at the airline (Air Zimbabwe).
I was a pilot just like any other pilot. They would come up
with a roster and maybe that the president is going to New York and they say
which pilot performed well, who passed the exams, with no disciplinary record;
those are the ones that are assigned and put on the flight.
(The Mugabes) had no influence, I did not know him, I did
not know his daughter, I had no relationship with her, it was just a job.
What role did your father-in-law Mugabe play in your
appointment at Air Zimbabwe? He was asked.
“At one time, His Excellency former president Mugabe called
the honourable minister and myself.
One of the things that he said to the honourable minister
was that you cut no corners, no favouritism but I know that he is good at what
he does, so go ahead and go through the interview processes, but you will cut
no corners.
That was our mandate even from the beginning. That was his
way of management, but I know the honourable minister did not even need to hear
that he is a very honourable man, he is a wise man and he is a professional.
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