Prof Jonathan Moyo under fire

ZANU PF's Hurungwe West MP, Temba Mliswa has hit back at Information minister Jonathan Moyo labelling him the "real agent of American intelligence services".

Mliswa was reacting to recent State media reports which questioned his ties to the United States Embassy in Harare.

He claimed the reports were planted by Moyo as part of internal fights ahead of the party's December elective congress.

Mliswa is one of the 12 Zanu PF members accused by some sections of the ruling party of receiving development aid from the US in return for "selling internal party information".

The "dirty dozen" MPs and some MDC-T legislators are alleged to have clandestinely invited US embassy officials to their constituencies for meetings with various members of the community.

However, both the US embassy and the MPs have denied the charges, with the legislators saying the "dirty campaign" was being engineered by Moyo to tarnish their political images ahead of the party's national elective congress.

The Mashonaland West Zanu PF chairperson yesterday said Moyo had more CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) DNA in his veins than all those accused combined.

"Moyo is more CIA agent than all of us combined; it is in his blood. Who is a CIA agent, the one who controls the fund or the one who receives? That is just cheap politicking being done," Mliswa quipped in apparent reference to Moyo who once worked at Ford Foundation, Kenya, in 1993.

Moyo, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, is alleged to have left the US-funded Ford Foundation in a huff after he was implicated in a corruption scandal involving about $61 644, according to an audit report then.

The money, which according to an independent audit report compiled by accountants PriceWaterhouseCoopers, was meant for a Nairobi-based non-governmental organisation, the Series on Alternative Research in East Africa Trust.

The audit questioned expenditures of $61 644 out of a grant of $127 000.

Part of the audit report read: "Expenditure on unapproved projects includes $40 858 relating to scholarship costs to Milka Okidy (a former employee of the Foundation) and $5 073 given as advance to support Generations activities under Professor Jonathan Moyo."

Mliswa insisted that the spying reports were part of a grand plan to dislodge him from his provincial post by some politburo members in the province.

"If Zimbabwe is using US dollar as the main currency, can we therefore say government is also selling out?" he asked.

Another "implicated" Zanu PF MP for Makonde, Kindness Paradza, said: "It is unfortunate that the State media continue to scandalise me despite failing to prove their story . . . I still maintain that I never received money in any form. I challenge the Americans to produce a list of those who benefited. I know the man behind all this is a well-known beneficiary of the Americans. He benefited more than all purported combined."

Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo last week said the party would soon institute investigations into the named MPs.

These include Paul Mavhima (Gokwe Sengwa), Walter Kanhanga (Guruve North), Batsirayi Pemhenayi (Mutare North), Enock Porusingazi (Chipinge West), Tapiwanashe Matangaidze (Shurugwi South), David Butau (Mbire) and Simbaneuta Mudarikwa (Uzumba).