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Minister Biti reportedly said the “illegal” recruitment strained Government coffers and the issue was given much publicity in the private media.
Sources said the minister raised the issue two weeks ago to give the IMF team pointers on areas to probe in his own Government.

“(Minister) Biti’s game plan is now in the open. When he raised the issue of recruitment of soldiers, he was doing it on behalf of the IMF. He did the same before the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme meeting held in Washington recently.
“That time he made a lot of noise claiming that Anjin was not remitting diamond money to Treasury. After the KPCS meeting, Anjin was no longer an issue to him.

“By so doing, Minister Biti wanted to subject the Government to effective probing by outsiders, and his intention to make the inclusive Government a listening post for the West has been working,” said a source.
Another source described the request by the IMF team as absurd.

The source said the multilateral institution was going out of its way and was trying to redefine the line of command in Zimbabwe.
“The IMF sought audience with the Minister of Defence and has not done so through the Commander-in-Chief but through a line ministry, which is its contact line in Government.

“By so doing, the IMF is trying to redefine the command or making itself the commander-in-chief in Zimbabwe.
“The IMF is also widening its mandate because its brief is to meet with economic ministries.

“Ordinarily, the IMF could not have such courage and it is clear that the request is emanating from within and the IMF is just playing cat’s paw to certain political interests in the country.”
Another source said the request poses a threat to the country’s security.

“This is a new dimension which is unprecedented and it amounts to a security threat and shall be dealt with that way.
“In any case, the Ministry of Finance has no role in determining when the army should recruit. Where did (Minister) Biti acquire security competence and, besides, he is not even a security official in his own party,” said the source.

It was not clear yesterday whether Minister Mnangagwa would accede to the request as he was reported to be out of the country together with his permanent secretary, Mr Martin Rushwaya.
Minister Biti could not be reached for comment yesterday.