Gvt owes over US$10 million in salary arrears to at least 43 diplomatic missions.

President Robert Mugabe’s cash-strapped Zanu PF government is struggling to pay salaries on time to diplomatic staff deployed to 43 embassies across the world, a senior official said Tuesday.

Finance ministry permanent secretary, Willard Manungo, told the Foreign Affairs parliamentary portfolio committee that government owes over US$10 million in salary arrears to at least 43 diplomatic missions.

Manungo said arrears arose from three months of failing to meet obligations.

The committee also heard that the missions barely have vehicles to use in their operations while some embassies are housed in dilapidated buildings.

“We have 43 foreign missions and we are not able to pay their salaries on time as we are doing with other civil servants,” he said.

“We are now proposing that we transfer their salaries to Salary Service Bureau through which we pay all the other civil servants rather than putting it through the ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

He added: “The country is facing some financial challenges and we are now prioritising which sector to start with but we know that diplomats play an important role in portraying the country’s image outside.

“We don’t want to see our diplomats living in poverty; so we have authorised the treasury to release the $10 million to pay them.”

Manungo told the committee that the bulk of resources were being consumed by relocation expenses of diplomats returning home after service.

He added that a lot of money was also going towards paying tuition for children of those still serving.

The chairperson of the committee, Reuben Marumahoko, said he was familiar with the challenges at the foreign affairs ministry.

“When I went to Malawi as a deputy minister on government business a few years ago, I had to use a commuter omnibus to travel as there were no vehicles at the embassy in Lilongwe for me to use,” he said. source-newzimbabwe