Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Joram Gumbo has clarified on statements that he made that Fly Africa Airline is idle and that it is owned by white foreigners. This comes after the airline’s lawyers wrote to weekly publication, The Standard, demanding a retraction. The airline claimed that it did not believe that Gumbo ” would have made or volunteered such wrongful, inaccurate and altogether scandalous untruths.” In another interview with The Standard, Gumbo said:
I said that with full knowledge of the industry and how Fly Africa was operating because I am the minister of Transport and I know, which airline is flying and which one is not.
…I am sorry if they were annoyed by the word idle; I retract it and replace it by saying they are not very active compared to other local airlines.
Even as we were on the flight to South Africa with the president, one of their members told me that they were not commercially active but were working on that and would do so beginning of March.
If they failed to understand that English, well we apologise.
…I know for a fact that there are white people there who are Zimbabweans and also black people too. If to them being white means a foreigner, then again, we are sorry.
As government, we don’t discriminate basing on colour or race. As long as you are a Zimbabwean, we treat you the same.
We are sorry that they again failed to understand simple English and made their own interpretation to the effect that when one is white, he or she is a foreigner.
More: The Standard