Staff ReporterHarare – Zimbabwe’s ex-president Robert Mugabe has reportedly demanded his pension and retirement benefits just less than two months after President Emmerson Mnangagwa gazetted the list of perks applicable to a retired president.
According the privately owned Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, Mugabe told visiting African Union’s Moussa Faki Mahamat this week that his benefits were “being denied”.
The nonagenarian said the situation in the southern African country was worrying. He said that his security was not guaranteed.
“…For instance, they told you, I was safe, but how can I be in this environment?… “We have constitutional benefits, for example, but these are being denied.”
“… It’s not like I am crying for those benefits. I joined the struggle to fight to free my people, not to personally benefit anything, but why deny me benefits that I am constitutionally entitled to?,” Mugabe reportedly queried.
“… Anyway, just give us our benefits!,” he said.
Mugabe was entitled to first class air travel on four foreign trips per year; private houses and a veritable army of aides and domestic staff which also included a $10m pension.
The benefits were laid out in an official government notice published by Mnangagwa in December.
The notice said: “There shall be employed in connection with the residence of the former President (i) three domestic employees, and (ii) two gardeners, and (iii) two cooks and two waiters and (iv) two laundry persons. The ex-president will also get security staff, office workers and aide de camp officers.”He said that the country was being ruled by an illegal government that took over late last year.
Mugabe urged Mahamat to assist the country return to “democracy and normalcy”, said the report.
