President Robert Mugabe has left Harare for Egypt at the taxpayer’s expense.
He has spent more than $10 million on foreign trips to date since January at a time his broke government is battling to pay workers and grow the stunted economy.
Mugabe who is the African Union’s chair flew out today to Sharm-el Shekh for the launch of the Tripartite Free Trade Area, comprising Comesa, SADC and the East African Community.
The TFTA brings together 26 member states whose leaders will sign the agreement on Wednesday. It also unites a population of 625 million and a gross domestic product of US$1,2 trillion. It accounts for half of the membership of the African Union and 58 percent of Africa’s GDP.
The decision to launch the Tripartite Free Trade Area was reached in Burundi in October 2014 after taking into account the fact that the majority of the tripartite member states agreed on ambitious tariff offers and rules of origin to be applied.
The launch of the TFTA is the first phase of the implementation of a developmental regional integration strategy.
Popularly known as the grand free trade area, the TFTA will be the largest economic bloc on the continent and a launch pad for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area in 2017.
It places high priority on infrastructure development, industrialisation and free movement of businesspersons.
The business community in particular will benefit from an improved and harmonised trade regime which reduces the cost of doing business due to the elimination of overlapping trade regimes due to multiple memberships.
Benefits of the TFTA include trade growth, reduction or elimination of tariffs to reduce the transaction costs across the continent and boosting intraregional trade.(State Media/Additional Reporting)
10 Replies to “Mugabe Flies Out to Egypt at Taxpayer Expense”
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I am amazed by the level of hatred journalism in this country, how can you be such negatively reporting such a good move, the president is expected to do this with the taxes that we pay because he is on state business which is what exactly he is suppose to do.
This TFTA is an important step forward, if only people could move from looking things in the short term and look things in the long term, There is no overnight turn around when it comes the economy most definitely not, when the president is actually trying to solve the every economic problem through this, it amaze me when someone try to lambaste him for that, it show a high level of immaturity.
Do you think TFTA was a barque function??
So this girl Margret Dongo was right, look at those men look like vana mai vedu pa bus stop baba vakudzokera ku Harare after Easter holiday. Mugabe is a polygamist saka madzimai ake ose anotomuperekedza.
Zimbabweans have nothing to sell to anyone because our industries have closed and who would want to sell to people with no money to buy anything?
Pliz, Wilbert , don’t display your hatred of Gushaz so openly like that!!..logically how is staying at home actually going to help revival of the economy ??!! Doesn’t the POTENTIAL VALUE of his trip lie in the fact of an FTA encouraging intra-African trade??!!
PLZ STOP THIS MORBID OBSESSION WITH BOB’S TRAVELS!! He is head-of -state and by that fact alone is ENTITLED to travel. Furthermore, he is head of AU and SADC which also means more travelling on official duty.
Pliz respect our intelligence, not by condemning each & every trip that Gushaz makes but by analysing the POTENTIAL VALUE of the trips. For example, is the formation of an FTA, meant to encourage intra-African trade not important??!!
KANA SEKERAMAYI AKATARISA MUGABE NE ZISO RINOTI……….MUNHU UYU AANETSA ….AND HAAANZWI ZVESHUWA….ATOZVISHAYA PAZVO…..MUGABE ANODHERERA MA ZIMBABWEANS ZVESHUWA
Zimbabwe’s economy is in total meltdown surely we should be concerned about how to save the few companies that are still there and how to encourage new companies to start up. We are wasted time and money on how to increase trade when we have nothing to sell and no money to buy anything with!
The only reason Mugabe is going to Egypt is because he loves traveling and hobnobbing with every leader; it makes him feel he is a great statesman playing at the world stage. Instead of him staying at home to sort out the country’s economic woes and political chaos he is traveling to escape these problems.
He is a great statesman who cannot allow himself to be tied down by petty domestic issues when he should be solving international, continental or regional ones. Sadly it is the domestic taxpayer who is footing the bill of the international, continental and regional statesman’s busy schedule!
People might wonder why this monkey is always on the move. He can’t afford to spend a night in his mansion because, the house is now under siege from goblins. They are creating havoc in the house and have of late, taken over his beloved grace. The idea of listing the grace in cloud 9, is quite unbearable, hence always in the skies.
vanhu vachembera avo tarisai misoro kuchena kani
Another totally useless wankshop !!!!!!!! Don’t come back to visit old foolish man. We don’t want criminals here