O amigo britânico de Mugabe

Air Zimbabwe is under new management and looks set for privatisation. The new board wants to borrow from the notorious entrepreneur and ZANU-PF donor Nicholas van Hoogstraten The state-owned national airline, Air Zimbabwe, has approached controversial British tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten for cash to help revive its operations. The programme may result in its privatisation. Van Hoogstraten, long an admirer of President Robert Mugabe and major donor to the governing Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), is reportedly Zimbabwe’s biggest landowner.

Aviation sources in Harare said Air Zimbabwe wants Van Hoogstraten to extend at least US$15 million to the company, which could enable it to resume the Harare-London route. Van Hoogstraten will be given a 180-day commercial paper for the funds which, according to an investors’ guide seen by Africa Confidential, is ‘for the immediate resuscitation of Air Zimbabwe operations’. The airline currently operates one long-range Boeing 767-200ER with one more in storage, among a small number of other aircraft which are mostly grounded.