First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa last week reportedly chartered a private plane to Belarus with her twin sons, Collins and Sean.
NewsDay reported that Mnangagwa and her entourage hired a Gulfstream G550, whose average hourly rental rate is around US$10 900.
It takes an average of 10 hours to travel from Harare to Minsk, the Belarusian capital and this means a one-way trip costs US$109 000.
Media reports from Belarus indicate that Mnangagwa met with President Aleksandr Lukashenko to discuss government business.
Under Zimbabwean law, first ladies do not hold official government positions.
It is not yet clear under what arrangement Auxillia is conducting business on behalf of the State.
On Tuesday, pictures emerged of her engaged in a meeting with Lukashenko and his aides.
Pictures of the First Lady and her sons in the company of controversial businessman, Aleksander Zingman, meeting Belarusian Foreign Affairs minister Sergei Aleinik were posted on the Information Ministry’s social media pages last Friday.
Zingman was appointed honourary consul for Zimbabwe by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2019.
Presidential communications secretary Regis Chikowore told NewsDay that he could not comment on matters involving the First Lady.
When presidential spokesperson George Charamba was asked whether the First Lady’s Belarus visit was official or private, he kept saying: “Hello, hello, hello”.
Foreign Affairs ministry spokesperson Livit Mugejo also referred all questions to the First Lady’s office.
Addressing the media in the Belarusian capital, Minsk on 11 April 2023 after meeting Lukashenko, Mnangagwa said there were no topics deemed off-limits during the meeting. She said:
We had a wonderful meeting with Mr. President. There were no closed topics between us. I felt absolutely at home. We discussed absolutely everything.
I can see now that our cooperation will move forward. He [the Belarusian president] has one important thing that we have, too. He is able and willing to work hard.
… I saw the care he takes for his country and his people. We saw how they take care of the children in hospitals.
That is why I told him: “Mr. President, let me tell you that you are not only a father – you are also a mother to your country.”
Unusually, she did not travel with journalists from the State media.
More: Pindula News
She has posited herself as a co-president.
Gold and Diamonds 💎 Looting Mafia. First Family is linked to all the Corruption and looting in Zimbabwe 🇿🇼. Citizens the EDiots are in State House looting Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 in private jets.
Making arrangments for the families move into exile when CCC rules supreme in the elections.
Nothing new here just a dictator meeting the family of a fellow dictator to secure their interests by continuing to plunder their respective countries at the expense of ordinary people. $200000 or more has been spent on this trip, money that could have been put towards better use. These are the same people that will go to a community, drill a borehole, receive praise and be voted into office by the same gullible people time and time again. Once the so called free and fair elections has passed, they are never to be seen again only to emerge after 5 years to offer the people the same pittance and be voted in to office again……and this is to be the same swan song for years and years unless they are removed from power totally. No to a GNU or any other arranged ZANU PF must be removed from power TOTALLY!!!
Aloota Continua, they are stealing while they can.
Was it not reported recently that Zanu-PF and government are now being run by the president’s wife and his two sons?.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!!!
Chiwenga is no longer the VP he has been made a clown now