Does our president ever stay in his own country? Silly, but well, it has been asked before, and I am asking it again this week.

A few years ago he was panned for trotting the globe, traveling the world and cartoonists had a field day as he was saddled with the unflattering sobriquet that borrowed the name of that well-travelled explorer Vasco da Gama.

Today our president “arrived” from Nigeria where he had gone to witness the swearing in of President Goodluck Jonathan. A few days ago he had “arrived” from Addis Abbaba, “arrived” from Namibia, “arrived” from Uganda, a few days before that “arrived” from…

Of course as “Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief” who wants the best of everything without regard of that starving Makokoba, Madlambuzi, Mhondoro granny you would expect this.

Yet Biti has already complained about the country ill-affording the “pleasure trips” of government officials with the poor taxpayer bearing the costs.

Of course it predictably will be claimed that the Dear President travels on official state business or whatever, but then we all know about other presidents who skip any jaunts and have made less foreign travel one of the defining  matrices of their tenure.

I liked it when Karikoka Kaseke – for the first time perhaps – opened his mouth and spoke sense when he complained recently that it is unfair to expect the impoverished taxpayers who will never in their lifetime board a plane to continue bailing out Air Zimbabwe when it is rich people who travel by air. And by rich, you just have to read “government officials!”

If we are to count the trips “His Excellency” has made since the beginning of 2011, keeping in mind of course the “medical tourism” to Asia, you have to seek Biti’s opinion about the justification of these travels.

Perhaps Biti might as well retort, “why ask me? Ask him!”

But we ask, how much have the taxpayers forked so far as we hit the half-year mark? The Singapore trips alone are already known to cost the taxpayer USD3 million according to press reports. Go figure.

This entry was posted on May 31st, 2011 at 8:36 am by Marko Phiri and is filed under Economy, Governance, Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.