Bob's Cow
Gucci Grace blows £75k

GRACE MUGABE, wife of brutal Zimbabwean president Robert, likes to be called 'First Lady'. She has nothing but contempt for the starving millions of his subjects. Today The Sun probes her cruelty and extravangance.

4^th March 2004

SHE is dubbed First Shopper and Grabbing Grace by her people.

She is far more likely to be found stripping top European boutiques or lounging in five-star hotels than listening to the desperate needs of Zimbabwe's hungry and homeless.

What makes her frivolity so disturbing is that while she shops, ordinary Zimbabweans starve.

Last year Grace, 39, blew an estimated £75,000 in just TWO HOURS in Paris fashion houses.

Her spending has reached such ridiculous levels many have accused her of being addicted to Gucci.

On her French jaunt, the former secretary had bought so much her aides needed an extra car to transport her goods to the airport.

Meanwhile, back in her home country inflation is now rife.

It is cheaper to use a 1,000 Zimbabwean dollar note as toilet paper, than use it to purchase loo roll.

Today, 4,000 Zimbabwean dollars are worth less than 50p.

Two out of three of the country's workers earn just £1 a day.

Grace Mugabe's Paris spree might seem like incredible excess, but as far as she is concerned, it was a drop in the ocean.

Her timing was immaculate.

Weeks earlier the World Food Programme was releasing a report saying more than seven million in Zimbabwe were dying of starvation.

But Grace carried on regardless.

And her doting husband Mugabe - 40 years older than she is - does not shy away from indulging his well-built wife.

He even bought her a lavishly-equipped DC-9, formerly owned by Playboy baron Hugh Hefner.

The gift was to help with Grace's shopping.

With her own plane she was able to go on regular shopping jollies to New York, London and Rome.

In London, Grace likes to stay in the sumptuous surrounds of Claridge's, conveniently close to elegant shops of Kensington.

At least now she has her own plane other Air Zimbabwe passengers are spared the humiliation of being turfed off flights to accommodate their first lady and her numerous parcels.

When she used to use the country's commercial airline she would also order pilots to land at military air bases instead of the normal airport so she could avoid paying duty on her purchases.

She and Mugabe now own at least SIX luxury properties.

Grace laughed off outraged criticism after it was revealed that she used public funds to build an incredibly vulgar home called Gracelands in a plush Harare suburb.

The finance came from a US aid programme intended to help the poor.

Gracelands was then sold to the Mugabes' pal Colonel Gaddafi for three times its original price.

But the Mugabes have acquired another house nearby and are investing 10million pounds in it.

The mansion is stuffed full of imported Italian tiles, pillars, sunken baths and chandeliers.

The master bedroom alone has as much floor space as an entire typical semi-detached home.

She is overseeing the installation of a gym, sauna, library, bar and billiard room.

Among their other homes, the Mugabes also own a three-storey mansion overlooking a golf course.

Apart from her relentless greed, little else is known about Grace's background.

What is clear is that she started an affair with the President while she was a secretary at the State House in Harare. Mugabe married Grace bigamously as his first wife, Sally, was dying.

Perhaps Grace is now given such freedom because she gave Mugabe what he most desired - a son, Robert junior.

She has since borne him a daughter and a second son

Grace, who was a good student at her Cathollic school, married Flight Lt Patrick Guririza in her teens.

But once her affair with Mugabe began, her husband was conveniently posted to Beijing - and has yet to return.

At least while he was with Sally, Mugabe managed to publicly maintain his socialist credentials.

But we now know he squandered many millions of pounds donated by Britain to help in the redistribution of land to homeless blacks.

His achievements to date, as we revealed yesterday, are a catalogue of horrors.

That Grabbing Grace can swan around flaunting her money is all the more crass when you look at the reality most Zimbabweans face.

For them, luxury would be reliable electricity, fresh water and ... food.

A spokesman for the Movement For Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's persecuted opposition, said: “At a time when most Zimbabweans are starving and the average township black lives in a tiny house with, on average, 16 other people, the way our crooked president and his scheming wife flash their wealth in front of them is an insult to the citizens they claim to care for.

'One day the Mugabes will pay heavily.'

 By Sally Brook - The Sun, UK