Zimbabwe ex-tourism minister facing graft charges freed on bail

Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 03:20 pm

A Zimbabwean former tourism minister was released on bail on Friday after spending two months in jail over the disappearance of $94m from the country’s pension fund, the state broadcaster reported.
Prisca Mupfumira was the first sitting minister of the ruling Zanu-PF party to be arrested for corruption under the new administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
She was detained on July 25 on seven corruption charges linked to $94m that missing from the national pension fund when she was welfare minister.
Two weeks later Mnangagwa sacked her from his cabinet.
After several attempts to be released from jail while she faces the charges, a High Court on Friday freed her on about $400 bail and ordered her to report to a police station twice a week, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Mnangagwa has identified endemic corruption as a major contributor to the country’s economic woes and vowed to root it out.
In July he appointed a new team to lead the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission, which was created during the rule of long-time leader Robert Mugabe but had been criticised for being ineffective.
A former vice president Phelekezela Mphoko, 79, was also granted bail last month as he faces corruption charges.
He had been a deputy to Mugabe, who died earlier this month.