ZANU PF Admits Putting 13 000 "Youths" On Government Payroll

A ZANU PF Minister has now admitted to parliament that Mugabe hired more than 13 000 youths just before the violent June 2008 presidential election "run-off". These youths were used to commit such acts as you see in the photo above: women and men being brutally beaten on the buttocks for supporting the MDC-T or Simba Makoni's presidential candidature. Some of the victims got their arms cut off in an act called "Long Sleeve, Short Sleeve". Long Sleeve was the cutting off of the entire arm, while Short Sleeve was the cutting off of the hand. The victims were asked which they preferred before they were mutilated. The youths hired by Mugabe's party are paid through taxes contributed by the people they mutilated. These youths will not be fired, says the Ministry of Youth. Instead, their status will be "regularised".

Harare, Zimbabwe, 04 December 2009

In an admission that people were hired by government to terrorise the MDC-Tsvangirai and its supporters, Zimbabwe's Minister of Youth, Saviour Kasukuwere, has told parliament that he hired more than 13 000 youths just before the 2008 ill-fated presidential election "run-off".

Kasukuwere said the youths were hired as "ward officers" and even admitted to the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee that they had been hired "irregularly". He was quick to say that he is now "regularising" their appointments, an admission that they will not be fired and will instead be kept on for the next election, when ZANU PF is most likely going to resort to violence and intimidation once more.

There are no records of the youths (in terms of personal files) within government. In fact, it is so bad that none of the 13 000 have bank accounts. To get their salaries, the Ministry withdraws cash and pays these youths. The cash is being withdrawn from something called an "imprest account" under the Ministry of Youths.

These are the same youths who are now going around with Jabulani Sibanda, a War Veterans' leader in Zimbabwe, telling people that if they "thought a beating on the buttocks was bad last year, next time around, it will be a bullet to the head."

Tendai Biti's Ministry of Finance is too scared to probe this matter and they also told the Committee that they had indeed erred because they did not seek to get a manifest of workers within the Ministry of Youth when paying salaries.

They simply released funds and deposited them into the imprest account without asking any awkward questions.

It raises the question of who is really running a parallel government within this Mugabe/Tsvangirai Inclusive Government. Mugabe is accusing Tsvangirai of running a parallel government in his office and improperly hiring people to work in his office.

This last week, Mugabe's point-man on the civil service of Zimbabwe announced that he was now banning these Tsvangirai appointees from entering Government buildings and handling State papers because they are not sworn to the Official Secrets Act.

Clearly, what Kasukuwere did was setting up a parallel structure in government. This is part of the reason why ZANU PF is resisting a Civil Service Audit. It would expose things like these and lay bare the workings of its terror machine.

It is also very instructive to note that the youths (so-called Ward Officers) were hired just before the run off. This was after ZANU PF had lost the election in March. At that time, all the Ministers in Mugabe's government had been dismissed and asked to hand in their vehicles and other government property.

Kasukuwere, therefore, was not a Minister, really at the time, because he had not been appointed and there was no government in place. Yet he still went ahead and hired 13 000 people and put them on the Civil Service payroll?