Joram Gumbo issues statement on Zimbabwe Airways and dualisation of Beitbridge-Harare Road

          On retrenchment, Hon. Maridadi knows pretty well that during the hyper-inflationary period in Zimbabwe, we had bearer’s cheques and Air Zimbabwe did not operate for two years. They did not operate and what they did not do which I agree with you is that they did not resolve the issue of workers. They maintained all their workers on payroll and when the economy started to stabilise they came back to say we now want our money. There is a plan to pay them but the problem arising is how much we should compensate each of them for the Zimbabwe dollar tenure they were not working and that is where the problem is. On those who were retrenched, we addressed that issue when I got in office and we have continued to pay them from the little that we have been making and summarily we are taking care of that. However, the majority of people who were retrenched or who had not been at work during that period Air Zimbabwe was not operating are the ones with the issue that we must attend to. It is not the issue of the workers, I agree and it is the issue of us the management who did not address issues properly at that particular time which is where the discrepancy is.

Hon. Maridadi, I had explained and I agree with you but there is a reason we did not come out clear. If you remember well when we went to Malaysia to purchase the planes, I did not go there with the objective of resuscitating Air Zimbabwe but to buy aircraft from Malaysia and that is what I said. After making that agreement and as I explained whilst you were not yet in I think, what then happened is that when we had the flight-test for the first plane and landed in Malaysia after having flown for two hours and then got news that these planes would not leave Malaysia, they had to be impounded. We then got advice that to make sure that the planes would not be impounded, we had to cancel off the agreement that we had entered into as Air Zimbabwe and come up with another name. That is when we revisited the paper work and used the Government registered company namely Zimbabwe Airways in order to circumvent this problem. That is how we did it and whether we were foolish in doing so, I cannot say but we thought we were clever enough to secure and safeguard your money because part of the cost was already paid under Air Zimbabwe. We changed everything and that is why the State Procurement Board were saying we must also change the papers and put it under Air Zimbabwe which we said until these things are resolved, we will continue with that at the back of our mind. That is why we did that Hon. Maridadi in-order to make sure that we protected ourselves. That is when we also came up with the story that the diasporans were buying the aircraft. That is why I said we now have to explain exactly why we did that. It was only to save our situation otherwise we could have lost the money as the country and Government.

          Hon. Zindi, on why we did not come to Parliament for approval; when you and I were in Parliament, this company was already formed. Zimbabwe Airways was formed by Government in 2009 for the reasons I have stated and that was to revitalise or do away with Air Zimbabwe then and although I must take responsibility, I was not there then when the company was formed. For us it is a matter of taking the company from the shelf because it is already there as a Government company and we did not want to form another company because Government already had another one. Well, I still have to respect you Hon. Zindi and answer again why RGM and those other names were on the planes. It was out of excitement then, when there was President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Vice President Emerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko. This was not done by me but because these guys name their planes Mosi-a-Tunya, Mbuya Nehanda and so on, instead of doing that, my staff put on the belly of one plane RGM, another one EDM and the other one RPM and I am going to rub all those things because they are causing confusion. Yes they are causing confusion to many people. It is not the registration numbers of the planes but I think my staff was excited and they put the names of the president and his two vice presidents. I can take responsibility of the mistake that was done by my staff but I think it was out of excitement and may be a very silly excitement. I am going to remove that.

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