Joice Mujuru’s Zim People First party has rubbished a state media report that claims they have received British donor money.

ZimPF has not received any foreign funding from Britain

The Zimbabwe People First wishes to state categorically that it has no foreign funding that it received from the British government, British citizens, organisations or companies, contrary to claims carried in a Herald story of 16 February 2017, headlined “ZimPF foreign funded”.

The fact stated by our President Dr Joice Mujuru at her address of the Mashonaland Central  PEC meeting that the Herald Newspaper claims to have on record, is that expelled former member, Didymus Mutasa, used to get funding from members of our eleventh province, which is the diaspora, to fund his nefarious activities which were aimed at destroying our party from within. Zimbabweans in the diaspora, particularly some of our innocent supporters in the UK, fell for this project and contributed financially to Mutasa’s activities, albeit, without full knowledge of what these activities meant to achieve. This is the funding that Dr Mujuru referred to. It was not coming from the British but was coming from Zimbabweans domiciled in Britain who, as citizens of this country, are free to join any political party of their choice and this freedom includes even financing the activities of the political party.

The ZimPF constitution even compels senior members to fund party programmes regardless of their physical stations or areas they are domiciled. We want to reiterate that there is nothing criminal with Zimbabweans funding  activities of Zimbabwean political parties and no law in this country criminalizes that.

Zimbabweans in the diaspora contribute to the national fiscus through remittances to the country. It is only fair, therefore, that the government and Zanu-PF, allow them to participate in the way their country is governed through political participation. No one has  power to stop those in the diaspora from funding activities of local political parties tothat which they are members.

What is outlawed is funding of political parties by foreign nationals, governments and multinationals among others but it is not criminal for a Zimbabwean domiciled outside the country to contribute to the governance of his/her country through supporting a political party of their choice, including contributing financially to its activities.

We would like to reiterate that Dr Mujuru never insinuated that ZimPF is funded by foreign nationals or foreign governments. Claims that the party is being funded by the British are not only false, they are mischievous and desperate efforts by a regime that has been working with its media henchmen to attribute its failures and woes, which include opposition,  to externals forces.

ZimPF has never approached any British institution or individual for funding. We have always funded our activities from our pockets. In fact, the same Herald story quotes Dr Mujuru saying this.We are builders who build out of our own sweat and blood. We are committed to building this country in peace.

We are the future, we have the solution.

Jealousy Mawarire

National Spokesperson