Home Affairs minister Obert Mpofu yesterday opened up for the first time on the source of his wealth, claiming he earned all that he has through hard work.

Mpofu has been rumoured to be among the richest in Zimbabwe, if not the sub-region, with much of his wealth concentrated in real estate. In fact, it has been said before, and not denied until yesterday, that Mpofu owns half the commercial properties in the resort town of Victoria Falls.

Critics accuse him of accumulating his wealth when he joined former president Robert Mugabe’s regime, under whose reign Zimbabwe scaled up the corruption ladder from position 43 in 1998 to 157 last year, out of the 176 countries surveyed by Transparency International.

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