Amazing Grace: Zimbabwe’s ‘First Shopper’

By Juma Kwayera

She is known as Zimbabwe’s ‘First Shopper’ due to her penchant for expensive acquisitions and is resented for her monstrous inclination to lavish lifestyle in a nation where millions are suffering.

At the just concluded African Union heads of summit meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, amazing Grace Mugabe was in her element — aloof, imperceptive and evidently indifferent to the world around her.

She wore dark sunglasses everywhere she went, an oddity that attracted quite a few stares and comments. On that occasion, she wore black trousers, golden-coloured top with a matching headscarf and shoes. Her wedding ring, earrings, necklace and bangles were all pure gold.

The expensive jewellery was an apt summation of her as Zimbabwe’s First Shopper, a taste for good living that has made Europe and the US ban her from their territories.

Before the ban in 2002, her lavish lifestyle saw her at one time spend $150,000 (Sh12 million) in a short shopping spree in Paris at a time her country was in the grip of hunger and slipping into a deep political crisis. This drove Zimbabwe’s First Family to begin acquiring properties in East Asia, where it is believed she wants to relocate when Mugabe relinquishes the reins of power.

Various accounts of her impunity and appetite for property goaded her to withdraw more than $10 million (nearly Sh800 million) from the Central Bank of Zimbabwe even as the country was running low on foreign currency reserves.

Lone ranger

At the summit, when she was not in the company of her husband, the Zimbabwean First Lady was a loner. On one occasion during the Oafla meeting she walked away from the seat reserved for her and went to occupy an empty one far from her peers.

It took the prompting of an usher for her to return to her official seat. And this was after the funereal-faced First Lady took a photograph of this writer when she realised he had been watching her movements in the plenary hall for some time.

She was the only First Lady who walked around with a camera. A week before the summit, Grace had allegedly assaulted a British photojournalist, Richard Jones, in Hong Kong.

The Sunday Times of London reported last week the Mugabe’s have finalised the acquisition of a $5.7 million (Sh450 million) 12-bedroom house in the Thai capital, where their 20-year-old first daughter studies.

Unmatched greed

At home and abroad, Grace retains the tag of extravagant and callous woman. Asked to comment on the influence of the First Lady on national politics, a Zimbabwean doctorate student at the Catholic University in Nairobi, the Reverend Father Cuthbert Ncube, summed up the Zimbabwe crisis as "matriarchal."

"Grace is the genesis of all the problems Zimbabwe faces today. When Mugabe’s first wife, Sally, died in 1987, the moral fibre of Zimbabwean society broke down completely and was replaced by unmatched greed that ushered in political suppression. Sally’s demise created a moral vacuum that was filled by the woman now vilified as the First Shame of the nation."

Sally Hayfron was Mugabe’s first wife, whom he met while studying at Accra University, Ghana. According to Ncube, Sally had stabilising influence in the early years of Mugabe’s presidency, despite the two not having any children.

Freedom fighter

Grace, a former Mugabe personal assistant and more than 40 years his junior, married the president in 1996. The marriage was said to be a classic case of cuckolding, as the semi-illiterate Grace was until the death of Sally married to a soldier, Mr Stanley Goreraza, a veteran of the freedom struggle.

"Grace swept Mugabe off his feet. They hail from the same community and her clout in State matters saw the president moot the policy that resulted in his henchmen grabbing land from white farmers. While the policy looked like a genuine attempt to restore land to blacks, Grace became the chief beneficiary. Her family members — brothers, sisters and cousins — inhabit the State House," says Rev Ncube.

He says Goreraza was initially posted to Australia as defence attache, then in 2001, transferred to China as a diplomat at Zimbabwe’s embassy. In 2002, Mugabe honoured him for distinguished service for the country.

The soldier shot to the limelight in 1995 following allegations his wife had two children with the president before Sally died. Officially, the two had a son, Russell. With Mugabe, she has three children — Bona, Robert Junior and Chatunga.