A Zimbabwean deputy minister says he will donate his entire monthly salary to charity during his time in office.

Raj Modi, who was appointed deputy industry minister last month by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, says he knows what it feels like to be poor.

Modi emphasized he has the emotional intelligence and the empathy that enables him to walk in the shoes of the under-privileged.

It’s not clear what a deputy minister earns, though it’s believed to be less than $3 000 a month.

Modi is a Zanu-PF MP, the only ruling party candidate to win a seat in the opposition stronghold of Bulawayo during the July 30 polls.

The 59-year-old businessman moved to Zimbabwe from India in the early 1980s. He told the state-run Chronicle in July that his first job was mopping floors and cleaning toilets in a Bulawayo clothes store.

Over the years Modi became a successful businessman and philanthropist; his family runs the Modi Family Trust that assists small businesses with start-up capital.

Writing on Twitter on Sunday, he said his private businesses would sustain him while he donated his government salary indicating that he is in government for the people