Zimbabwe taxpayers are paying for ZANU-PF factionalism

In the early hours of August 10, 2014, before dawn, an angry Robert Mugabe was hunched over the podium, berating his senior lieutenants.

In front of him were thousands of hungry ZANU-PF youths, who had hardly been fed for the two days they had been gathered to pick a new youth leader.

“Why, why, why,” Mugabe thundered, demanding to know why a party as big as his had failed to fund the meeting. “What about the subscriptions from the people, where are they going? I am not happy.”

He then announced he was shipping in tonnes of sadza and 30 head of cattle, to wild cheers from his starving minions.

There was, predictably, an inquest. Why was ZANU-PF broke?

“The fact is that the party is facing challenges of money,” Rugare Gumbo, then party spokesman, told the media.

It was an understatement. Several internal reports had revealed ZANU-PF was broke, surviving on statutory grants and dwindling subscriptions from its impoverished members.

Supporters could no longer fund the party as a “considerable number of party cadres are reeling in poverty”, a 2014 central committee report had said. “Our traditional sources of revenue, namely subscriptions, membership fees and donations are severely affected.”

In 2014, the party was surviving on a $6 million bank overdraft. That year, the party spent $11 million against income of just $3.9 million. In its central committee report in 2015, the party reported subscriptions were down a further 65 percent. It could not even pay its phone bills and salaries.

ZANU-PF tried to turn to its businesses for funding.

Through M&S Syndicate, ZANU-PF had set up a network of commercial interests in the 1980s to fund itself. The interests range from home appliances manufacturer Tregers to airline catering firm Catercraft.

ZANU-PF also owns Jongwe Printers and several duty free shops, including some at Harare International Airport. The party also owned engineering company Mike Appel, and held some shares on the stock market.

But M&S was virtually insolvent, the 2014 central committee report said, as its subsidiaries were “either just breaking even or actually threatening to bring down the whole business unit”.

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