African leaders are accustomed to international attacks on their expensive travel budgets.

But as a major drought sweeps the southern part of the continent, local people are now demanding that leaders exercise sensitivity to the continent's problems, as they plan their costly foreign trips.

Last week, Mozambique's Independent Party, Pimo, attacked President Joaquim Chissano's foreign visits, saying the country "badly misses this money that is wasted on his travels".

The Mozambican bi-weekly publication, Mediafax, agreed.

"These expenses are paid by taxes from common people. People who do not have access to medical centres, schools, and other comforts - supposedly because there is no money," Mediafax complained.

A more heated debate in Zambia, which risks scarring President Levy Mwanawasa's ambitious anti-corruption drive, revealed that the president had made 14 foreign trips, costing nearly $1.5m since he came to office seven months ago.

"Paltry salary"

Parliamentarians and the public hit out at the president for spending huge sums on travelling abroad, while his country is asking for famine relief.

Concerned about the attack on his hard-earned image, State House revealed that the president's monthly salary was "a paltry" $700 and that he is probably the lowest paid president in Africa.

In June, Ghana's foreign minister struggled to defend the highly-reputed President John Kufuor against similar accusations.
Minister Owusu-Agyeman told Accra radio: "Almost all of the president's trips have opened very important financial credit lines for the nation".
But critics said President Kufuor's visits with some of the leaders, "are as meaningful as a regular morning salutation from a neighbour".

In South Africa, two private visits by Deputy President Jacob Zuma using air force helicopters to see his wife in Kwa Zulu province, were said to have cost taxpayers around $6,500.

The trips were described in the press as the most expensive conjugal visits.

President Thabo Mbeki too has been criticised for spending too much time abroad, and for purchasing a presidential jet worth about $29m to get him there.

Such attacks are nothing new to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who decided to silence his critics by arriving at a May day rally aboard a 49-seater bus.

According to Nigeria's Guardian newspaper, this was "the highlight of the day".

Only last year, Nigerian human rights activists took the President Obasanjo to court, querying his frequent trips abroad.

Activist Gani Fawehinmi had objected to the president's "insatiable penchant for globe-trotting".

He argued that while President Obasanjo is away, he "is not addressing the prevalent and pervasive poverty, which is causing disenchantment and disaffection amongst Nigerians".

Even Minister Ojo Madueke who famously cycled 10 km to meetings in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, has given up his noble anti-car crusade and is now riding in his official air-conditioned vehicle.

The minister says the official car allows him to look more "ministerial".

Old Guard

But it is Africa's old guard who best strut their stuff with unabashed style.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe earned the nickname "Vasco Da Gama", after the 15th-century Portuguese explorer, long before the EU slapped travel sanctions on him.

"Some Zimbabweans jokingly describe Mugabe as a regular visitor to Zimbabwe," the South African website Independent Online reported.

Kenya's Daniel arap Moi, meanwhile, awaits a handsome retirement package which is to include travel expenses.

Often rumoured to be one of the wealthiest Africans, Mr Moi is unlikely be driven into destitution by vacating the presidency, a newspaper columnist wrote in Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper.

Yet his supporters are seeking to win him international travel allowance of $15,000 a year.

Libya's Mu'ammar Gaddafi spares no expenses trotting around the continent, often by road, to promote his vision for Africa.

He arrived in famine-stricken Mozambique with his usual convoy of armoured cars and bevy of female bodyguards, after an African Union summit in South Africa that discussed the continent's hopes for rising out misery.

As his motorcade travelled through drought-hit Swaziland, the crowds cheered him on, but the press was not amused.

"We are opening ourselves to callous patronage and manipulation by a self-styled, showman whose paramount obsession is to ...rule Africa by pickpocketing emotional support from nations that, like us, are considered less significant in the continent," the Times of Swaziland newspaper said.

This comment reflects a rising trend of intolerance to excesses as the reality of poverty strikes a hard blow on the African continent .