Stories

Former Finance Minister Simba Makoni told United States diplomats including assistant secretary Susan Rice that President Robert Mugabe viewed everything through the optic of whether it threatened his tenure.

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Although Finance Minister Simba Makoni had announced a 2001 budget that was going to have a deficit of 15 percent of gross domestic product, the United States embassy said his budget was probably the most honest and thoughtful that had been tabled in Zimbabwe’s 20 years of independence.

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Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Jan Trojborg said President Robert Mugabe was “a man without a plan” but it was clear that the government could set one up quickly if the President gave his ministers the green light to do so.

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Simba Makoni was one of the youngest cabinet ministers at independence. When he was posted to the Southern African Development Community as secretary-general, there was wide speculation that President Robert Mugabe was grooming him to eventually take over and was giving him the international exposure that he needed

(133 VIEWS)

With revelations that Zimbabwe had spent US$200 million on the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, President Robert Mugabe was under pressure to withdraw Zimbabwean troops from that country so that this would not be a campaign issue in the 2002 presidential elections.

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A visiting International Monetary Fund team painted a bleak picture of Zimbabwe which they said could end the year with inflation of 80 percent and a budget deficit of 23 percent against the target 3.8 percent with the economic itself shrinking by 5.5 percent in real terms.

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Finance Minister Simba Makoni told United States ambassador Tom McDonald that the new cabinet had been given a clear mandate by President Robert Mugabe to get Zimbabwe to work again.

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In just four years Chenjerai Hunzvi rose from an obscure medical doctor to lead the war veterans association, though he admitted he had never been to the front. The association was dormant at the time but Hunzvi propelled it to greater heights, forcing the government to pay them huge lumpsum payments and pensions when it did not have money. He also became one of the most feared people in the country and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front’s point man to win them votes in areas where support was waning especially after the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change. But within a year of being elected to Parliament, and spearheading the farm invasions that saw scores of white commercial farmers being driven off the land, he was dead. There are just over 20 Wikileaks cables on him. Here is the complete batch.

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Zimbabwe’s cabinet of 2000 was split barely four weeks after being appointed to office with Information Minister Jonathan Moyo leading one faction and Finance Minister Simba Makoni another.

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A man claiming to be a founder of the notorious youth militia, popularly known as the Green Bombers, told United States embassy officials that the first recruits to the National Youth Service, as it was officially called, were trained for the express purpose of playing a role in the upcoming presidential elections.

(167 VIEWS)