Maravi

(SUNDAY MAIL ZW) PM accused of running parallel government

PM accused of running parallel government
Saturday, 24 March 2012 21:07
Munyaradzi Huni
Assistant Editor

The Prime Minister’s Office has been rocked by fresh allegations that it is running a parallel government amid startling revelations that the office has employed “independent contractors” who are milking the Government of its resources and have turned the office into an “election command centre” for the MDC-T. The “independent contractors” use Government resources to carry out their clandestine activities although they are not registered by the Public Service Commission.

As a result, civil servants in the PM’s Office are frequently clashing with these independent contractors who report directly to the Prime Minister or to the secretary in the office, Mr Ian Makone, leading to the transfer and resignation of about eight principal directors in the office. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s spokesperson, Mr Luke Tamborinyoka, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

One of the disgruntled principled directors, who was recently transferred to another portfolio for “unexplained and unclear” reasons, has since prepared a damaging dossier chronicling the rot in the PM’s Office.

In the dossier the director said “after 36 months” in office, there are allegations of a “breakdown of the working relationship just because some of us have resisted the move by Makone to turn the PM's Office into an election office.”

Said the director: “The secretary to the PM has decided to convert the entire office into an election team after the party’s congress in May 2011. The secretary is doing this because he is the elections director of the MDC-T and has also invested heavily in PM Tsvangirai’s political life over the past 10 years.”

The director noted that the situation was being compounded by the fact that at its formation in 2009, the PM’s Office was dominated by personnel that had no experience in human management. The director revealed that there were about 16 principal directors in the PM’s Office, adding that to show that the office has been turned into an election command centre, there is a principal director for constitutional reforms and election roadmap, Mr Jacob Mafume, and another principal director for residence construction and diaspora, Mr Lazarus Muriritirwa. Principal directors who have since been transferred or have resigned include Mr James Maridadi (director for communications and spokesperson),

Mr Andrew Chadwick (head of communications and speeches), Mr Martin Rupiya (security advisor), Mr Abisha Nyanguwo (director for social cluster), Mr Emmanuel Chimwanda (director of security), Ms Jacqueline Zwambila, Mr S. Hadebe (director in DPM Khupe’s office) and Mrs Thandie Hlabangana (director in DPM Khupe’s office responsible for community projects) The director said there are three types of employees in the PM’s Office.

“There is a group of employees in the Office of the Prime Minister who are employed by the Government via the Public Service Commission and receive their salaries from the Government . . .”

“There is a select group of employees who are under employment contracts of the PSC who receive their salaries from Government. In addition they receive monthly salaries from private donors to carry out research work which is mainly against the Government. The secretary to the PM is under this group of employees.

“There is also a select group of employees brought in directly by the secretary or the Minister of State in the PM’s Office. These employees don’t receive any salary from from Government and receive income from private donors after submitting research papers. They use Government resources including vehicles allocated to them by the secretary on a permanent basis.

“These employees do not attend meetings that are chaired by the Secretary to the Cabinet but hold weekly meetings with the PM,” said the director.
The director added that these independent contractors are sometimes used as the advance team when the PM goes on foreign trips “but this has contributed immensely to poor organisation and embarrassing moments for the PM.”

The director described the majority of workers in the PM’s Office as “political activists.”

Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, IAN MAKONE, MDC CORRUPTION, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, TREASON

posted by MrK @ 5:26 PM