This was revealed yesterday by Foreign Affairs minister
Sibusiso Moyo when he told the Kindness Paradza-chaired parliamentary portfolio
committee on Foreign Affairs that when President Emmerson Mnangagwa came into
power in November 2017, “what we found was that our diplomats were in salary
arrears of over 15 months, and they had no vehicles”.
“The cost of our embassies is about US$$4 million per month
and as of now, we owe ambassadors US$16 million in salary arrears that are of a
legacy nature.
“Government is making sure that the legacy issues are
sorted. When we send in money for their salaries, it is being recorded as if
they are eight months in arrears, but our thinking is that we will be paying
the current. Legacy issues will be addressed gradually,” Moyo said.
In terms of rentals, Moyo said the government owed US$7
million, while staffers from host nations are owed US$2 million in salary arrears,
with school fees and other operational costs accounting for another US$$5
million.
Asked by MPs to update on time frames the government was
working on to address the challenges, Moyo said it depended on the availability
of funds.
“You cannot concretely come up with a time frame as to when
we will clear these issues because it depends on the financial support that we
get. We are trying to make sure that we ameliorate the legacy issue gradually
while at the same time we keep up to date with current salary payments.
“Furniture at our embassies has not been changed for many
years. The renovations going on are like starting afresh. In terms of
accommodation; the challenge has been that most of our embassies have not been
maintained for many years.
“In South Africa, if it is raining, they will have to cover
up because roofs are leaking, while in New York, the accommodation situation is
also not good. We are rationalising our foreign missions, but it is a process.
We have a closed embassy in Hong Kong. But the challenge is that if you close
embassies, you have to think of relations with those countries. And by closing
an embassy, your influence in the world will be diminishing,” he added.
This also comes as director in the ministry of Finance
Pfungwa Kunaka also told the committee that the situation had gotten to that
stage because Treasury had been facing foreign currency challenges.
“We have been facing challenges in terms of generating
forex to meet that obligation, but we have gathered some ground now because last
week we disbursed US$6 million; we can be behind in terms of operational costs,
but in terms of current salaries we have covered ground,” Kunaka said.
Meanwhile, the committee heard that foreign governments
were releasing Zimbabwean returnees without testing them for Covid-19 because
“it is not their responsibility to test foreigners who are leaving their
countries so they prioritise their populations”. Daily News
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