Zimbabwean President Demands For A Salary Increase After Blowing $5m On His Daughter's Wedding

After blowing $5million on his daughter’s wedding earlier this month, Zimbabwe’s firebrand president Robert Mugabe is set to ask his country’s hard-up treasury for a pay rise next month.

The defiant leader, who has ruled Zimbabwe since leading the country to independence from Britain in 1980, is set to get an increase despite not delivering on his election promise to raise the salaries of public sector workers. Most workers earn around $300 a month. It is estimated that Mugabe draws a monthly salary of around $8,000 despite the country being bankrupt.

He told public sector workers at a lunch event last week that he was told that pay increases would come into fruition next month, announced he said by finance minister Patrick Chinamasa, and warned the treasury against pulling an April Fool’s joke on him.

 ‘I was talking to [Public Service Commission chairman] Mariyawanda Nzuwah who is close to Mr Chinamasa and he assured me that we would be paid. Even the President is also a worker – 1st of April don’t fool us,’ he said.
President Mugabe has also vowed to crackdown on corruption involving high-profile officials at state institutions following recent damning exposures of graft, including at the national airline.