EXCLUSIVE: By Own Correspondent | ZimEye | As she gets the Zim Miners Federation President Henrietta Rushwaya jailed, First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa has rushed to book for an expensive central London hotel stay where she will sleep in the same premises with the nation’s married male ambassador, Christian Katsande, ZimEye can reveal.
Auxillia is scheduled to fly into London for a still to be explained sadza cooking completion to be held on the 7th,8th,9th, and 10th November inside the embassy.
She is flying with 10 women who won the cooking competition from the country’s the 10 provinces.
They will all be using a chartered flight that will have another 50 people traveling with the First Lady, who will be the only audience for the function together with 10 bodyguards.
The 10 cooking contestants are going to compete against themselves. The judge will be the First Lady. The audience will be the 50 people she is bringing, aboard a chartered flight costing USD500,000 per every 3 days.
What is the logic of flying 50 people to UK to compete against themselves in your own embassy in front of your own audience you flew in from Zimbabwe, and blow USD3million, yet the government could not buy ballot paper in the 2023 elections?
The development is coming at a time a doctor died because the government could not afford a helicopter to fly him from Mutare to Harare. The money could be used to buy a helicopter for emergencies.
What is the logic of the First Lady to go to England with people who will compete against themselves?
Coming to run a competition which could be done back home, and blow USD3mil.
The First Lady this year alone in her philanthropic work has become more travelled than former First Lady Grace Mugabe.
2 weeks ago she was in Spain. The previous week she was in Russia, and she was also in Switzerland. In July, she was in the US, from where she flew to UK, and then on to Russia, then Zimbabwe.
She briefly sat down for elections before setting off again.
In a year so far she has done over 58 trips. Above all these trips she is flying over to England to convene a function at the embassy where the employees have not been paid since May 2023.
The ambassador Christian Katsande has been booked into the same hotel buiding with thr First Lady, where the government is laying GBPLP1,000 per day for him alone, in addition to the GBP8,000 per month being paid for his private residence at a time when the embassador’s official house co tiniest without an occupant.
After the last ZimEye article 2 years ago exposing the ambassador’s extravagance which story later spilt to the Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, the renovation bill for the ambassador’s house was suddenly dropped from GBP1,240,000 down to GBP300,000.
This is not the first time the ambassador is doing good this and on Auxillia’s last visit, the ambassador abandoned the house he is paying GBP8,000 per month, to rent her hotel premises where he was paying GBP1500 per day.
Ambassador Katsande was reached for a comment over these issues.
Why is the ambassador doint this, when he has a house that is so large that it has conference rooms?
Why would the ambassador travel to spend nights in a hotel building with the First Lady alone in her husband’s absence?
The spending does not stop here. When the First Lady arrives in UK, the ambassador is hiring a bullet proof car from a friend of the his who is charging the state GBP1,000 per day. The car is one of 10 other vehicles.
The other 9 cars are being hired from the same supplier who also last supplied Mr Mnangagwa at the COP26 Climate Change Conference.
The ambassador confirmed the Auxillia Mnangagwa meeting in a recent public meeting.
– Meanwhile, for painting the embassy building, the ambassador gave the contract to his nephew, who is walking away with GBP122,000 for paint works to the small The Strand property.
When Auxillia last visiter UK, ZANU PF members, one of them, Dr Masimba Mavaza deceived activists, saying she was addressing people in Wales, only to find out that she was in Cambridge.
ZimEye can reveal her hotel is a posh London one that costs nearly GBP1,000 per day.
Efforts to get further comment from the ambassador were fruitless as he did not return calls for over 2 weeks. Mrs Mnangagwa was neither taking calls. Both however did receive questions that centre around why they are both booking into the same hotel, and why her visit is blowing over GBP3million for a function that could have been held in Harare.
Henrietta Rushwaya conviction.
Her flight comes at a time, the Miners Federation Presidemt Henrietta Rushwaya has been jailed over gold smuggling, and multiple impeccable sources told ZimEye the prosecution has nothing to do with the rule of law, it is an opportunity Auxillia has pounced on to get Rushwaya put out of the scene. ” You need to understand that whatever Auxillia says, goes, as she’s the one running things now,” said one source.
It could not be obtained at the time of writing why on earth Mrs Mnangagwa is after Rushwaya when she is touted in various circles as a niece relative of Mr Mnangagwa’s.
Another went on to allege that Axullia is not responsible for just the downfall of Rushwaya, buy also of former Energy Minister Fortune Chasi, and in the last few weeks, the classy businessman, Tinashe Mutarisi, who has posted many cryptic messages around the time his factory building was burnt down. It was claimed that the reason he was targeted is because he did not donate enough money to her Angel Of Hope Foundation.
A small peep into Auxillia Mnangagwa’s personality is reflected in Al Jazeera’ GoldMafia part 1 to 4 documentary which has the controversial ambassador Uebert Angel announcing that she is the one in charge. Zimbabwe’s lengthiest expose’ of Auxillia is a videocall she made by mistake to Simba Chikanza on 14 May 2022, shortly before she received community protection from the activist Hopewell Chin’ono, who threatened Chikanza claiming she had been blackmailed.
The late President Robert Mugabe’s party spokesperson Jealousy Mawarire briefly touches on this development saying:
ZimEye