Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has donated 100 computers to 10 schools in Harare ahead of a parliamentary by-election in a key suburb, reports said on Friday.
Voters in the low-income suburb of Budiriro are due to go to the polls on Saturday to fill a parliamentary seat left vacant by the death of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP Gilbert Shoko.
Mugabe made the donation after addressing crowds at a rally at a school in Budiriro on Thursday, when he urged voters not to vote for the MDC which he called a ”foreign creation,” according to the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
”Yesterday’s donation meant that all secondary schools in the Glen View-Mufakose District — which covers Budiriro constituency — have benefited from the president’s computerisation programme,” the paper said.
The 82-year-old Zimbabwean president began handing out computers to schools ahead of presidential elections in 2005, when some schools in Zimbabwe’s rural areas also benefited.
But there has been muted criticism of the donations because not all schools have electricity or computer teachers and in some cases the computers are reported to have lain idle or been stolen.
At the rally, Mugabe also confirmed the government’s controversial plans to take a 51% share in all mines.
”You [mine owners] will get 49%, we will get 51%, that is the policy of government. It is there for the taking, take it or leave it, leave it or take it,” he said.
There are three candidates competing for the Budiriro parliamentary seat: Jeremiah Bvirindi of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party, Emmanuel Chisvuure of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction of the MDC and
Gabriel Chaibva of the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC faction. – Sapa-DPA