Former president Robert Mugabe’s two sons have returned home to Harare after their hectic year in Johannesburg.
Robert Jnr, 25, and Bellarmine Chatunga, 21, were reportedly reunited with their parents this week.
Robert Mugabe, 93, was ousted from power in a largely peaceful coup d’état last month.
His sons’ return was reported on Friday by the Zimbabwe Independent.
The former first family is expected to fly to Asia soon to join Bona Mugabe, Mugabe’s eldest child, who is due to give birth to her second child.
The Mugabes generally seek medical attention in Asia.
They previously went to Malaysia on their annual holiday and later their
rented mansion in Dubai. But the Mugabes gave up that home last year after their sons were obliged to suddenly leave the United Arab Emirates.
During the December break, Mugabe, usually travels to Singapore to consult his medical team.
He regularly hired an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 767 via the presidential budget or an expensive charter for these trips, but it is not clear how he will travel now. He never uses commercial airlines and travels with a full-time medically trained carer.
Mugabe’s sons gained a bad reputation in Johannesburg after they were evicted from a flat in Rivonia earlier this year after it was damaged during a drunken party. They then rented two more flats, also in Sandton, and held parties there.
Their mother, Grace, allegedly beat up a young Johannesburg woman drinking with her sons, in one of the flats in August.
After charges were laid against her, she was given diplomatic immunity by the South African government.
Grace Mugabe bought a mansion in Sandhurst Johannesburg for about R45million earlier this year. That house needs building alterations so she rented another massive house, in the same suburb, where her sons live.
They reportedly started selling expensive imported clothes in South Africa and recently launched an entertainment company.
Robert Mugabe Jnr studies in the design department at the University of Johannesburg.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has appointed Isaac Moyo, Zimbabwe’s ambassador to South Africa, as the new director-general of the powerful Central Intelligence Organisation.
The former DG of the domestic spy agency was Happyton Bonyongwe, who was briefly the previous justice minister under former president Mugabe.
The CIO has enormous powers and it operates from the presidential budget which is never audited.
Statistics and details of the size and pay scales of the CIO are almost impossible to verify.
Despite its size and lack of any
oversight by parliament, for example, the CIO failed miserably in recent years to stop massive looting of state-owned enterprises and corruption within the civil service.
Mnangagwa also appointed a few new senior civil servants and reshuffled others around the 21 ministries, which is a smaller cabinet than Mugabe’s.
He has also instructed that soldiers be deployed to the Beitbridge border post during the festive season in an attempt to reduce “criminal activities”.