9am too early as Mugabe fails to turn up for missing diamonds hearing

Former President Robert Mugabe today failed to turn up to give evidence in the “$15 billion missing diamonds” hearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy but committee chairperson Temba Mliswa admitted that Mugabe was not legally obliged to attend.

Instead Mliswa said his committee had realised that 9am was too early for the 94-year-old former leader and had therefore rescheduled the hearing at 2pm on Monday.

The Insider has queried before whether it is really necessary to summon Mugabe to testify unless this is merely meant to humiliate him or to get mileage for Mliswa.

Mliswa today claimed the committee did not intend to humiliate Mugabe.

“We are not here to humiliate him, we expect him to have enough time to prepare. So on Monday at 2pm we expect him here,” Mliswa was quoted by French news agency, AFP, as saying.

But The Insider has asked before what the point of calling Mugabe is because of the overwhelming evidence that there is no way the country lost $15 billion worth of diamonds.

Besides, Mugabe seems to have lost some memory since he left office.

He told an international television interviewer that there was no way his wife Grace could ever become president because she was not even a member of the party- ZANU-PF.

Grace was not just a member but was the leader of the party’s women’s league and a member of its politburo, the party’s highest decision-making body outside congress.

“If Mugabe cannot remember that his wife was a member of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and was vying to become president, what makes one think he can remember what happened to Zimbabwe’s diamonds?” The Insider asked.

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