Zimbabwean intelligence agencies are ”monitoring” cash flows to some foreign embassies in the country, according to a newspaper report on Thursday.
Speaking to Zimbabwe’s weekly Financial Gazette newspaper, the ruling Zanu-PF secretary for external affairs, Didymus Mutasa, said: ”Our intelligence arms are taking care of the situation on the ground. We are keeping our eyes open.”
According to the newspaper, the monitoring is to identify diplomatic missions suspected of funding the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
”Embassies must remember that they are here because we want to strengthen our friendship. We do not go to their countries to meddle. It is better for the Americans to concentrate on regime change in their own country, which is the worst, than to come here and talk about regime change,” Mutasa was quoted as saying.
The newspaper said that the investigation came after the government decided that the opposition should be bankrupt after all the legal challenges it has mounted to contest the elections that it claims were rigged.
However, it still appears to have money in its coffers.
MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said: ”No money is given to us by foreigners. This is a fact and Zanu-PF knows it … We get our money from local supporters and from the Political Parties Finance Act.”
On Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw — who is visiting Cape Town — dismissed claims that his government supports the MDC.
”We don’t support any particular political party in Zimbabwe … We don’t support any political party anywhere in the world,” he said.
Straw said a total of £45-million (about R539-million) is available to fund land reform in Zimbabwe should a solution be found to the political and economic crisis in that country. — Sapa
British govt doesn’t support MDC