'Zimra boss earning $310 000 monthly'

MDC-T Mbizvo legislator Settlement Chikwinya Thursday made sensational claims in Parliament that the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) commissioner-general Gershom Pasi is earning $310 000 monthly and that Cabinet minister Webster Shamu had received a vehicle from the troubled ZBC Holdings .

The salary, according to Chikwinya, is minus allowances and other perks.

Seconding a motion on the lack of corporate governance in state enterprises moved by Kambuzuma MP, Willas Madzimure, Chikwinya said information he had showed that Pasi was hugely remunerated.

"Our society has information that people like Gershom Pasi are earning $310 000 per month, but because Parliament has not yet been capacitated to make formal investigations through a select committee of parliament, such information remains unverified, therefore, we move the motion that there be a committee to investigate and make such findings public," he said.

Chikwinya claimed that he was informed that former Media, Information and Publicity minister Shamu had received a Land Cruiser VX8 from suspended ZBC chief executive officer Happison Muchechetere.

also informed that former Media, Information and Publicity minister Shamu had received a Land Cruiser VX8 from suspended ZBC chief executive officer Happison Muchechetere.

"We are also informed as parliamentarians that minister Shamu received a black VX8 vehicle from Happison Muchechetere and such information, again, requires that a parliamentary select committee be set up to investigate and make public its findings," Chikwinya alleged.

Madzimure told parliament that ZBC bought eight Land Cruiser VX8 vehicles and could only account for six, with reports that the then Information minister and board chairperson Cuthbert Dube were beneficiaries of the said vehicles.

He said Zimbabwe had a problem of Cabinet ministers appointing to paratstal boards, incompetent individuals whom they use as conduits to fleece the country.

Madzimure proposed that Parliament be accorded sight of the list of recommended people to sit on state enterprises boards before they are approved by the government.

The lawmaker pushed Parliament to establish a select committee to investigate the goings in state owned enterprises.

He said the select committee, for example, should investigate the airport road project in Harare, questioning why a 15km road would cost $80 million when a 76km road in Ngezi constructed by Zimplats cost $17 million.

The media has since December been reporting on obscene salaries being paid to state enterprises at the expense of service delivery. The Zimbabwe Mail was the first to expose the salarygate  scandal when it revealed former Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) boss Cuthbert Dube's $250 000 salary in mid-December.

It has also been revealed that PSMAS board members, who included Information ministry secretary George Charamba also took home thousands of dollars in fees, while at ZBC's  Muchechetere was earning in excess of $40 000 monthly at a time when shop-floor workers went for six months without pay.

Local authorities have not been left out after it was revealed that Harare town Clerk Tendai Mahachi and a coterie of other top directors were creaming the capital of over $500 000 in salaries and perks monthly

Mugabe has since demanded the schedule of salaries and perks of all parastatal bosses from the country's 78 government owned enterprises.