Zimbabwe government's top 10 big foreign travel spenders

Investigations by The Sunday Mail reveal that the top 10 big foreign travel spenders as a percentage of their total budget for 2011 according to the Blue Book are:

    Prime Minister's Office at 41,59 percent with a staff complement of 52.
    Regional Integration and International Co-operation at 28,10 percent with a staff complement of 68.
    Economic Planning and Investment Promotion at 16,44 percent with a staff complement of 84.
    Enterprise and Parastatals at 16,15 with a staff complement of 43.
    Office of the President and Cabinet at 15, 94 percent with a staff complement of 498.
    Industry and Commerce at 14,41 percent with a staff complement of 269.
    Tourism and Hospitality Industry at 13,83 percent with a staff complement of 74.
    Audit and Comptroller-General's Office at 13,47 percent with a staff complement of 248.
    Environment and Natural Resources at  7,65 percent with a staff complement of 48.
    Parliament of Zimbabwe at 7,61 percent with a staff complement of 226.

While the PM's Office tops the big foreign travel spenders as a percentage of its total budget, it is number seven on domestic travel expenditure even though its primary function is to oversee the implementation of all Government policies in the country.

The PM's Office has no mandate of any kind in the discharge of foreign affairs which constitutionally is the responsibility of the President as the Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

On domestic travel, investigations show that in monetary terms the top 10 budgetary spenders are:

    Home Affairs US$4 110 000 with a staff complement 38 103.
    Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation US$2 242 000 with a staff complement of   14 679.
    Education, Sport and Culture US$1 745 000 with a staff complement 101 027.
    Finance US$1 076 000 with a staff complement of 210.
    Office of the President and Cabinet  US$1 045 000 with a staff complement of 498.
    Defence US$883 000 with a staff complement of 1 405.
    Prime Minister's Office US$850 000 with a staff complement of 52.
    Health and Child Welfare US$515 000 with a staff complement of 29 310.
    Parliament of Zimbabwe US$490 000 with a staff complement of 226.
    Youth, Indigenisation and Empowerment US$469 500 with a staff complement of 7 776.

These revelations clearly show that the PM's Office has no budget commitment to do or support any Government work inside the country.

Allegations are that the US$850 000 earmarked by the PM's Office for domestic travel is spent mainly on MDC-T activities such as meetings, rallies and partly funded the party's violent congress in Bulawayo.

A lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe who did not want to be identified for fear of demonisation by the pro-MDC private media told this paper that the high foreign budget and low domestic budget expenditure of the PM's Office "is as revealing as it is disappointing because it shows that Tsvangirai is doing nothing for the country as PM in light of his zero budget for programmes".

The lecturer said it was unfortunate that the PM used his foreign travel budget, that is milked from taxpayers, to support his globe-trotting which he uses to campaign for the illegal economic sanctions which have devastated the livelihood of ordinary Zimbabweans while tarnishing the country's image.

"The one person who must explain all this abuse of public funds is Tendai Biti as Minister of Finance. But nobody should expect any rational explanation from him because he opposed pay increases for civil servants while allocating 63 percent of the PM's budget to Tsvangirai's travel and house. That's scandalous if you ask me," said the lecturer.