Tshabangu smiles all the way to the bank as CCC receives 45 million ZiG from government
CITIZENS Coalition for Change faction leader Sengezo Tshabangu will be smiling all the way to the bank after Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Ziyambi Ziyambi yesterday indicated that the pliant opposition party will received a substantial amount from Parliament.
The Political Parties (Finance) Act [Chapter 2:11] states that every political party is entitled in each parliamentary year to receive funds from the State.
The Act states that the Parliamentary Affairs minister should publish, with the approval of the Minister of Finance, a notice in the Government Gazette specifying the total amount of money appropriated for all political parties and the amount that shall be paid to each individual political party in terms of this Act.
The Act further states that each political party whose candidates received at least 5% of the total number of votes cast in the most recent general election is entitled to the same proportion of the total amount of money appropriated as the total number of votes cast for its candidates in the election.
In an Extraordinary Government Gazette published yesterday, Ziyambi said: “It is hereby notified, in terms of section 3(2) of the Political Parties (Finance) Act [Chapter 2:11], that the total amount payable to political parties in respect of the year beginning January 1, 2025 and ending December 31, 2025, is ZiG147 682 500 [US$5 524 971 using the official rate].
“The amount shall be disbursed to political parties that qualify in terms of section 3(3) of the Act as follows: ZiG102 343 972,50 [US$3 828 805] shall be paid to the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front), which received 69,3% of the total votes cast; and ZiG45 338 527,50 [US$1 696 166] shall be paid to the Citizens Coalition for Change, which received 30,7% of the total votes cast.”
Tshabangu, believed to be a proxy of Zanu PF, will be receiving the funds after wresting the party from former leader Nelson Chamisa by writing to Parliament and councils posturing as the acting secretary-general recalling legislators and councillors sympathetic to Chamisa replacing them with his own.
