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Financial Gazette (Harare) February 13, 2003. Posted to the
web February 13, 2003. AllAfrica.com
Harare - THE cash-strapped government this week chartered an Air Zimbabwe
Boeing 767 that could cost it more than US$644 000 to ferry doctors and medical
specialists to Zimbabwe, which continues to lose poorly paid health
professionals to other countries, it was learnt this week.
Officials at the national airliner said the plane left Harare on Tuesday
morning carrying Cuban doctors and medical specialists returning home and was
expected to fly back with another load of health personnel.
"The plane left on Tuesday with more than 105 doctors and medical
experts and we are expecting it to come back by Friday," an official told
the Financial Gazette.
"We are told that it will be coming back with more people, but we have
not been told how many there will be. The process is expensive for the
government because Air Zimbabwe is now selling its tickets using the United
States dollar."
The official said on routes that the national airliner does not normally
service, chartered flights had to be paid for in foreign currency.
On the Harare-Havana route, a single return ticket costs US$3 500 or $192
500 at the official exchange rate of $55 to US$1. At a parallel market rate of
$1 600, a single ticket would cost $5.6 million.
Air Zimbabwe officials said the government would be charged for each
passenger carried on the charter flight and would also have to pay a separate
charter fee.
Health and Child Welfare Minister David Parirenyatwa yesterday told the
Financial Gazette that the Air Zimbabwe Boeing 767, which has the capacity to
carry 193 passengers, left Harare with 117 Cuban doctors and would return with
74 others.
This would cost the ministry US$644 000, excluding the charter fee.
Parirenyatwa said: "Yes it is true we chartered the plane to go and
collect 74 medical specialist from there (Cuba).
"The plane left with 117 Cuban doctors yesterday (Tuesday), when it
comes back, it will bring those 74 specialists. The returning doctors were
supposed to go back in October last year but we postponed the trip."
It was not clear whether the Ministry of Health, which is said to have lost
32 health professionals in the past four months, would pay for the charter from
funds allocated to it in the 2003 national budget or where it would secure forex
for the charter.
Zimbabwe is facing a critical hard cash crisis that has adversely affected
fuel and food imports.
The Health Ministry was given $73 billion in the 2003 budget, which
constitutes 18.7 percent of total budgetary allocation. The ministry faces a
potentially devastating strike over pay, only a few months after health
personnel downed tools over the same problem.
Dwindling funds have resulted in the deterioration of health services, with
nurses, doctors and other medical personnel leaving the country almost every
month in search of better pay and working conditions.
Zimbabwe is also critically short of drugs because of severe foreign
currency shortages. | 
