GPA-Broker Mbeki Visits Harare

Mbeki, whose invitation was facilitated by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, will be guest of honour at the fund-raising dinner.

A Committee of eleven Trustees which includes Mutambara and Finance Minister Tendai  Biti, has been set up to oversee the operations of the UZ account.

The UZ needs about US$70 million for its capital projects.

According to a brief from the UZ information department, the Saturday dinner is envisaged to raise US$10 million while another US$20 million is expected to be raised by the end of 2012 through on-going fund-raising activities of the fundraising committee.

But it is the presence of the former mediator of the power-sharing pact that has been talk of the town.

The former National African Congress leader brokered the power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister (PM) Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara in September, 2008.

It will be the first time for Mbeki to visit Zimbabwe since he was ousted in a bloodless coup as the ANC leader and South African president by current President Jacob Zuma. Zuma assumed the mediation mantle after Mbeki’s ouster.

Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s faction of the Movement for Democratic Change viewed Mbeki as not an honest broker due to his liberation war links with President Mugabe and ZANU-PF.

Some hardliners in the MDC accuse Mbeki of arm-twist Tsvangirai into singing a skewed power-sharing deal which has rendered him a paper tiger premier or powerless PM. The coalition government is beset by political bickering and squabbles.