Former Transport Minister, Jorum Gumbo raided Zinara for funds for a trip to Malaysia on Zimbabwe Airways business. Gumbo insisted that...
Former Transport Minister, Jorum Gumbo raided Zinara for funds for a trip to Malaysia on Zimbabwe Airways business.
Gumbo insisted that there was nothing wrong as it was all in government business. Zinara paid for $4 380 for Gumbo’s travel expenses to Malaysia although the trip had nothing to do with road development.
He told The Herald :“What happened when we started this thing about Zim Airways, we were going on trips to Malaysia. The point was that Zim Airways did not have money. You could not then get money from Air Zimbabwe because they were strained and they could not pay because it was now like two separate accounts or entities — Air Zimbabwe on its own, Zim Airways on its own.
“But then how do you go to Malaysia and do Government business, we needed money to go there. What we then did at the ministry was then to say let’s look at a parastatal that can fund the trip so that’s is how we did it. Zinara was the only place where we could get money, but still it was Government business.”
Gumbo was also paid $1 295 by Zinara for a four day trip to the Midlands.
“When you go out as a minister you apply for assistance because you do not have the money for hotels and all your staff so there is nothing wrong,” he said.
“Zinara is for roads. From the ministry you are only given 650 (litres) coupons, but because you are going out you do not go alone. You go with a team to visit the roads. So if you are going to visit all the roads in the Midlands you get the funding from them. Zinara is for roads so they will assist you to go out and do work that we are supposed to do.
“Every time you saw me in Nkayi, Chipinge, in Mashonaland Central or anywhere else, accommodation, food and all the other expenses were being paid for by Zinara.”
Gumbo's firm also won a Zinara tender. “I have a company
called JMCD. It is our company and the directors are myself and my wife. It is
a sewing company. It is supplying the army, Zanu-PF, the Ministry of Health
(and Child Care) and many other companies. It won these tenders. It has got
nothing to do with me as an individual.
“I cannot go and stop a company and say you can’t tender.
It is not possible and the fact that I am working and when the company supplies
the army and the Ministry of Health it is okay, but when they supply Zinara
because they have won a tender competitively like everybody else then it
becomes a crime. I do not understand it. When they won their tender I was not
even involved, but the company is there and there is nothing to hide about it.
It is connected with Nemchem and was supplying a lot of things in Government.
We are doing a lot of cleaning and it did not start now. That has always been
happening.”
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