Mugabe’s first grandchild born in Asia
HARARE: Zimbabwe’s 92-yearold President Robert Mugabe’s first grandchild, a boy, was born in Asia this week and not in Zimbabwe.
His only daughter, Bona, married to a Zimbabwe pilot, Simba Chikowore, chose to have her child far from home.
Bona’s mother Grace was with her at the birth which was said by some Zimbabwe media to have been in Dubai. Others said the baby was born in Singapore.
No official announcement has yet been made.
Bona and Simba were married in a lavish wedding in 2014 and live in one of her father’s homes in Harare. Mugabe’s three children with Grace were all born in Harare, but the family has since chosen to have medical care in Asia, usually Singapore.
Zimbabwe’s once excellent public medical facilities collapsed more than a decade ago. But there are still several adequate private hospitals with qualified medical personnel in Harare.
Mugabe has had several operations and regular checkups at a five-star hospital in Singapore. He usually arranges an official visit to Asia and then calls in to see his doctors in Singapore.
Mugabe travels on one of Air Zimbabwe’s two Boeing 767s. Airline insiders say each trip costs at least R12 million which is paid out of the unaudited presidential budget.
This income is the main contributor towards keeping the bankrupt Air Zimbabwe in the air.
Earlier this year Mugabe said he was going to India but did not arrive and stayed in Singapore for medical attention. He also went to Japan on an official visit last month and also stopped off in Singapore. This was his second visit to Japan in the past eight months.
Jacob Mafume, spokesman for the People’s Democratic Party, criticised the first family’s rejection of health care at home.
“This is the one who claims that Africa is for Africans and Zimbabwe is his, yet his grandchild will by choice not even be a citizen of Zimbabwe by birth. It just shows his hypocrisy,” Mafume said.
Mugabe’s first child, a son, died of malaria in Ghana 50 years ago, while Mugabe was in detention in Rhodesia.