During a Press conference held in Harare yesterday, Miss Tourism Zimbabwe patron Barbara Mzembi said that the pageant belonged to the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA). Her comments come after ZTA head of corporate affairs, Sugar Chagonda’s claimed that they surrendered the pageant licence to Mzembi under her Miss Tourism Zimbabwe Trust in 2014. Chagonda’s claims come after NewsDay published a story on Tuesday saying ZTA were responsible for the pageant.
Said Mzembi:
This pageant is not in the name of Barbara Mzembi. It belongs to Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and they are the ones who have been running with this pageant for years. They proposed to me to be the patron, but it is still their pageant and I was only there to run it for them. Up to today, I have not received any letter saying it’s now mine and they are no longer involved, so it’s not official
to me.
NewsDay reports that ZTA chief executive Karikoga Kaseke was not available for comment to clarify on who really owns the pageant.
More: NewsDay