Moyo's diplomatic passport seized

Moyo's diplomatic passport seized

MOYO

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By Staff Reporter

TSHOLOTSHO legislator Professor Jonathan Moyo has for the first time told of the "primitive" way the government went about reclaiming privileges he enjoyed while in government.

Moyo expelled himself from government when he ignored President Robert Mugabe's pleas not to stand as an independent candidate in parliamentary elections in March this year. He had served as Information Minister since 2000.

His decision was followed by a backlash from President Robert Mugabe, beginning with an attempt to push him out of a government villa in Harare's leafy Gunhill suburb.

In an exclusive interview with New Zimbabwe.com last night, Moyo also revealed that the government had frozen his salary as a non-constituency MP acting on Mugabe's direction that Moyo had been dismissed from both government and parliament.

"To their credit, the civil servants in Parliament have belatedly realised that Mugabe cannot fire an MP, elected or otherwise," Moyo said.

"They are now going to make a backdated payment to me covering the one-and-a-half month period or so from the day of my departure leading to the dissolution of parliament. The idea was to make sure no salary was coming my way in any way."

Moyo also told of a bizarre effort to repossess his diplomatic passport while he was winding-up his campaign in Tsholotsho constituency, where he beat candidates of the ruling Zanu PF and opposition MDC.

"They sent messages to the constituency election registrar in Tsholotsho saying I must surrender my diplomatic passport to him. I am the only former minister who doesn't have a diplomatic passport. It seems you now have to win an Olympic Gold Medal to get one," Moyo said in a caustic reference to the diplomatic passport given to swimmer Kirsty Coventry.

"But I am glad I don't have the diplomatic passport and I don't need it," blasted Moyo. "The way my departture from government has been handled has confirmed what I always used to fear before I joined them -- that their sense of government is very personalised and primitive."

Moyo said he was yet to reclaim his ordinary passport from the Registrar General, rubbishing claims from some media organisations that he had been denied a visa to travel to the UK.

Said Moyo: "How can you be denied a visa when you have not applied for one, or better, how do you apply for a visa when you don't have a passport?"
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