The women’s national soccer team, the Mighty Warriors, are still to receive the Samsung Galaxy s7 phones that were donated to each of the 12 500 participants at the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympic games. The ladies were unable to collect the phones personally, resulting in the phones being collected on their behalf by Titus Zvomuya who was the Chef De Mission of Team Zimbabwe.
However, on arrival in Zimbabwe, the phones were confiscated by Zimra over customs duty, which is reportedly $2 000 for all 22 phones. Seven months later the duty is still unpaid something which the Mighty Warriors have bemoaned.
The ladies also decried the preferential treatment shown to the male side, who received tens of thousands of dollars each for participating at the Africa Cup of Nations, while the ladies only received $500 dollars each. The ladies also bemoaned the government’s inability to assist them on this matter.
A member of the Mighty Warriors squad who spoke to the Daily News said:
We want to know why they (phones) were taken when in actual fact we were on national duty and the phones were not meant for commercial purposes but for personal use by each and every athlete. Also how much duty it is or was required so that we can run around and look for the money to pay up the required duty individually since the government has more or less failed to assist us in this regard.
According to them (the ministry) $2 000 was required as duty for all the phones and when you look at the male side, the Warriors got thousands of dollars, the girls got only $500 but still they can’t settle a $2 000 invoice for the 22 players combined.
More: Daily News