AirZim's $9m golden handshake to ex-boss Muringi
Paul A
Paul A
Thursday 27 May, 1999
AirZim awards $9m golden handshake to ex-boss Muringi
Staff Reporter
AIR Zimbabwe, the ailing national airline, has awarded its former chief
executive Huttush Muringi a cool $9 million as an exit package, the Financial
Gazette learnt this week.
Muringi, dismissed over charges of mismanagement three years ago, was on a
full salary and benefits without going to work during the period.
The disclosure comes just when another loss-making parastatal, the National
Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), which like Air Zimbabwe also falls under the
Ministry of Transport and Energy, is understood to have forked out $10 million
as a parting handshake to its general manager Alvord Mabhena, who left the NRZ
earlier this year.
Sources within the airline industry and the Transport Ministry said this week
Muringi would get about $5 million in cash as his golden handshake, plus the
Air Zimbabwe-owned BMW 525 vehicle which he has been using. The sources
estimated the total package at around $9 million.
Air Zimbabwe board chairman Nicholas Nyandoro yesterday refused to disclose
Muringi’s package, saying he was happy the long-running dispute with the
former airline boss had been resolved.
“It is not possible to say how much Mr Muringi was paid as his exit package.
There is a specific agreement in place that no party involved in the issue is
to disclose the amount involved,” he told the Financial Gazette.
“In any case, what is important to the airline, the country and everyone
involved in this issue is that the matter has finally been amicably resolved,”
said Nyandoro, adding that a substantive chief executive of the airline would
be announced within the next two weeks.
Muringi was dismissed from the corporation in 1996 but continued to receive
his full annual salary of $320 000 and a free house and had his electricity
and water charges paid by the airline after the High Court ruled that his
sacking was unlawful.
He was also entitled to have Air Zimbabwe pay up to three of his gardening and
domestic servants and provide him with a 24-hour security service.
In January this year, Muringi served summons through his lawyers demanding
that he be paid $2,5 million in unpaid benefits since his dismissal.
After Muringi’s dismissal, the airline hired an Irish expatriate, Brendon
Donohoe, who it paid over $5 million in salaries during his two-year contract.
The national airline is in the midst of implementing a commercialisation
exercise which will result in the retrenchment of about 400 workers at a cost
of about $113 million. The company failed to secure a government guarantee and
is paying for the exercise from its own coffers. The voluntary redundancy
scheme, which started last November, is expected to cut the airline’s annual
salary bill by $84 million.
The airline is reported to be losing more than $140 million annually through
interest charges and customs duty on aircraft spares.
Government ministries, on the other hand, owe Air Zimbabwe about $40 million
in unpaid bills.