The Greenbelt Authority has spent K105 million on air tickets for Minister of Agriculture Lobin Lowe and six other officials to travel to China.
Lowe and six officials are going to Wuhan in China via Addis Ababa and Guangzhou. The Minister will travel business class, spending K24 million. 
According to an Ethiopian Airlines invoice dated 29 June 2022, the other six are Chidzungu, Wester Kautsi, Snowden Kamoto, Daniel Nkhwekwe, Benjamin Kapanda and Eric Kosamu.
It was not immediately clear what the officials will be doing China.
The revelations about their trip comes weeks after President Lazarus Chakwera ordered all public officials including ministers to be flying economy class. The president also restricted the number of foreign trips to three.
The orders were part of measures aimed at controlling the use of funds in government between June and the end of year.
“Public officers, including myself, who need to travel abroad for their work out of absolute necessity will only be allowed to take no more than three trips during the remainder of the year, unless in cases of unforeseen extreme emergency.
“The number of people in a delegation travelling abroad will be subjected to stringent restrictions,” said Chakwera.
The Greenbelt Authority (GBA), is a Parastatal organisation established under the Greenbelt Authority Act No. 23 of 2017 and its main objective of the organisation is to champion the development of large scale irrigation, with a view to accelerating Socio-economic transformation through increased agricultural productivity, agro-processing and easy access to markets.
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