Presidential spokesperson and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services George Charamba has defended President Emmerson Mnangagwa for hiring private jets for foreign trips. Charamba said that the benefits of the state trips far outweigh the costs which some people are complaining about. He also dismissed reports that the government had paid $2.3 million for the private jet saying it was actually a million less. Speaking on Capitalk FM, Charamba said,
Just to get out a single component of the Chinese trip more than a billion dollars investment, simple mathematics will tell you that this is very good accounting and very good economics.
Look, when you are rebranding a country, when you are reorienting its foreign policy and when you are re-engaging you must budget for some cost. And in this particular case, we are having a catch where the benefits are far outstripping the costs that we are incurring.Just to serve you on a matter of detail the private jet that the President used to China it in fact cost $1.3 million.
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