Siri za usaliti wa mke wa Mugabe

Last week several came forward with more revelations which showed the depth of Gono’s betrayal.

One who worked in Gono’s office said he first became aware of his boss’s affair with Grace several years ago when he accompanied him to Malaysia on official business.

During the visit Gono, who had been booked into the Sheraton hotel in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, quickly disappeared to the Berjaya Langkawi beach and spa resort on the island of Langkawi to see her.

The source said that he and his colleagues thought nothing of it until they came to settle Gono and Grace’s hotel bill for the stay and found they were paying for a double room.

Asked how he reacted he said: “In our job we never trust anyone. Even those we are working with we don’t trust. We saw and kept quiet. It is very sensitive.”

At the end of last year, he said, the couple had shared a room at the Cape Grace hotel in Cape Town.

Another of Mugabe’s right-hand men, the former Air Vice-Marshal Robert Mhlanga – a key figure in the controversial exploitation of Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond field which is so rich it could make Zimbabwe the world’s top diamond producer – was also said to be aware of Grace’s affair with Gono but kept silent.

Mhlanga has hosted the couple at his Johannesburg house on several occasions during their so-called business trips to South Africa.

“Ask me for another trip like that!” Grace said to Gono afterwards in one e-mail message seen by the official.

More incriminating claims came from the workers at Gushungu, Grace’s dairy farm, an hour’s drive from Harare.

The couple pass off their frequent visits to the farm as business and make a point of arriving and leaving separately.

“At first I did not think anything was going on between them outside business because each time Gono came he bought money with him for the farmworkers,” said one.

“But later on I started suspecting that something was going on each time we visited the house after they had gone.

“No one was allowed inside while they were there. After they left we went back inside.

At once it was clear the bedroom had been used for their meeting even though the first lady’s bodyguards had tidied up.

They had remade the bed but we could see the sheets had been used. And we noticed the perfume in the bedroom.”

Asked if it surprised him that Gono and Grace were using the farm for an affair, one worker said: “I am not surprised by it.

Some others might be. But those who worked at the farm and particularly those who worked in the house will not be astonished.

“It was only going to be a matter of time before someone said it for us. We could not say it ourselves because of fear.”