Tsvangirai pressures Mugabe over terminal benefits

Morgan Tsvangirai Former Prime Minister yesterday piled pressure on President Robert Mugabe to pay him a government pension and terminal benefits saying he was equally entitled to the same benefits as those recently gazetted in favour of former VP Joice Mujuru.

Tsvangirai's spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka said that his principal would continue to demand the benefits accusing Mugabe of double standards.

"He is not meeting his part of the bargain in terms of meeting the packages of the man he shared power with in the inclusive government," Tamborinyoka said.

"Those are his (Tsvangirai's) dues, but as I have always said, he is not shouting noise to the high heavens because for him, going into the inclusive government was to serve the people. The man should get his bargain because he shared power with Mugabe equally during the inclusive government. The malice is now out there, the selective application is now out there in the public domain.

"If the condition is that he must first say the 2013 election was legitimate for them to give him his dues, then tough luck."

President Mugabe recently decided to gazette former Vice-President Joice Mujuru's pension and retirement benefits including State-funded aide-de-camp officers, eight months after she unceremoniously lost both her government and Zanu-PF posts raising eyebrows among her sympathisers and analysts who view the move as calculated to monitor her movements and curtail her plans to join opposition politics.

Mugabe on August 7 this year, gazetted Statutory Instrument 86 of 2015 outlining retirement benefits for former Vice-Presidents.

The benefits include a State-funded domestic worker, gardener, two drivers, a private secretary, a close security unit officer, two aide-de-camp officers, use of a Mercedes-Benz motor vehicle, a colour television set, an official office and telephone in addition to medical aid and air travel allowances.