She says the trip by party officials on a South African National Defence Force aircraft achieved a lot of what was intended.

Zulu was participating in an online seminar on lessons the ANC can learn from post-colonial Zimbabwe.

Zulu insists critics of the now infamous junket to Harare are wrong, both about how the trip was undertaken, and what it achieved.

The seminar’s leading participant, Ibbo Mandaza, who is one of Zimbabwe’s foremost intellectuals, was having none of it.

“Lindiwe exaggerates the role of former liberation movements, unnecessarily so," Mandaza said.

"Whether it’s a public relations stance, I don’t know. She must know, as we all know, that Zanu-PF is a heavily dented party. It is completely naive and self-indulgent on the part of anybody, including herself, to think that Zanu-PF can turn around Zimbabwe’s fortunes.”

The ANC is yet to pay back the money for using the defence force aircraft as its private jet as it has promised to do.

It has also still not arranged to meet any Zimbabwean political players other than Zanu-PF.

eNCA