According to state media, President Emmerson Mnangagwa told off an official from CBZ Bank when she brought his first salary in a “sack of cash.” The official indicated that this was the arrangement which had been initiated by former president Robert Mugabe. However, Mnangagwa is reported to have turned this down and instructed the bank to his bank account. A source who spoke to the Sunday Mail said,
I can tell you for a fact, because I was there, that a lady (name withheld) from CBZ Bank came with a sack of cash to President Mnangagwa’s Office when his first payday arrived. The President asked her what the money was for, and she pulled out a form and said it was his salary and he must sign for it.
The President said it was highly irregular and irresponsible, and the lady indicated that cash salary payments were standard for the old man (Mr Mugabe) and she assumed that was how things were done for the highest office in the land.
His Excellency gave her his bank account number and told her to do a transfer as is done for everyone else, and told her that if he needed cash he would queue for it like everyone else because the cash shortages affected all Zimbabweans and he would demand no such preferential and irregular treatment.
The president’s salary was not revealed although former president Robert Mugabe is reported to have been his monthly salary of $20 000/ month in cash. State media appears to be going after president Robert Mugabe ever since his endorsement of the new opposition party, the National Patriotic Front (NPF).
More: Sunday Mail