WITH Zimbabwe’s political situation remaining tense, the
government is planning to introduce a new law which criminalises the spreading
of falsehoods against key State institutions such as the military, the Daily
News reports.
At the same time, authorities said yesterday that they had
now identified the people who recently claimed that President Emmerson
Mnangagwa was on the verge of being toppled from power by the military.
All this comes as Zimbabwe is in the vice grip of a huge
economic crisis which has stirred anxiety and restlessness among ordinary
Zimbabweans.
Appearing in Parliament on Monday, Defence minister Oppah
Muchinguri-Kashiri said the government would soon be bringing a new Bill to
clamp down on purveyors of falsehoods which were harmful to the security of the
country.
“I will not tell you what we are doing. I think on that one
(coup rumours), I will reserve it for security reasons. We dismiss it (coup
claim) with the contempt it deserves.
“We don’t go by social media reports,” she told the
portfolio committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services.
“We are dealing with it. We cannot share (what’s happening)
in case some might want to post some items. But we have to deal with it.
“We already have a Bill on how to deal with these people
who peddle lies, particularly on the security situation in the country.
“Those are people bent on bringing the country into
disrepute … The net is closing in on them because we now know them,” Muchinguri-Kashiri
added.
This comes as security chiefs recently dismissed talk of a
pending military coup against Mnangagwa and his government — warning that they
would descend heavily on purveyors of such information.
In addition, they also warned former senior Zanu PF
officials and leading opposition figures that authorities would catch up with
them for continuing to make the “reckless” utterances.
All this also comes after the military staged a popular
coup which ended the ruinous reign of the late former president Robert Mugabe
in November 2017 — as the country’s current economic crisis began to
deteriorate precipitously, amid escalating Zanu PF factional and succession
wars.
However, two years after holding historic polls in which
Mnangagwa beat Nelson Chamisa by a wafer-thin margin, Zimbabwe continues to
experience economic pains — a situation that has been exacerbated by the deadly
effects of the global coronavirus pandemic and the regional drought that has
left millions of people in the country facing starvation.
Despite showing early signs of efforts to turn around the
economy, which had suffered from years of corruption and mismanagement under
Mugabe, Mnangagwa and his lieutenants are now finding the going tough.
So deep are the country’s economic problems that the
hapless Zimbabwe dollar — which was prematurely and ill-advisedly re-introduced
by under-fire Finance minister Mthuli Ncube last year — is collapsing
spectacularly, which in turn, has triggered steep price increases of basic
consumer goods.
On Monday, Muchinguri-Kashiri also lifted the lid on the
immense challenges that the military is facing, including struggling to clothe
the soldiers and providing them with a full complement of rations.
In addition, she bemoaned the debilitating effects of the
lethal coronavirus, which she said had significantly reduced the Zimbabwe
Defence Force’s budgets.
Muchinguri-Kashiri also told the lawmakers that soldiers
had turned down the idea of resuscitating garrison shops to cater for their
basics at reasonable prices.
Instead, she said, they had demanded hampers. “This was a
welcome development (having garrison shops) within our forces, but the strategy
was adjusted because they preferred hampers as opposed to garrison shops.
“The purpose of the two still serves the same objective.“There are hampers which are reasonably priced … We
continue to review this. We hope in the near future we will introduce garrison
shops,” Muchinguri-Kashiri told the committee.
Monday’s committee meeting was also held at a time that the
country was said to have been involved in quelling insurgencies in neighbouring
Mozambique.
However, Muchinguri-Kashiri dismissed the claims as
“dangerous social media lies”.
“Those are social media dangerous rumours and lies. Dismiss
them with the contempt they deserve.
“Regarding Mozambique, there was a (Sadc) Troika meeting
that took place here in Zimbabwe, but there is no harm when a chairman of an
organ is invited by a neighbour to say I have a problem in Mozambique, can you
assist me?
“Equally, any country … can raise a flag to say I am in
trouble. That is what happened.
“Because of the location of Mozambique, you cannot go as
one country to settle a problem that will overflow to a number of countries,”
Muchinguri-Kashiri added.
“So, we take that regional posture … No country will dare
to go into a situation, whether it was in DRC … or everywhere that we have gone
to, we do have treaties and conventions.
“We respect those. We abide by certain rules and
regulations, principles of Sadc that another country cannot go into another
territory without a general understanding and agreement.
“Zimbabwe is very mindful that these issues are of a
regional thrust,” Muchinguri-Kashiri said further.
“We are privileged that Zimbabwe is still chairing the
(Sadc) organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, and you know that
when a neighbour in the region is under attack, we take a regional approach.
“That’s what we do with any country under attack. Decisions
are made at a regional level,” she added.
Mnangagwa is the current chairperson of the SADC Troika
Organ on Defence, Politics and Security Cooperation.
The organ recently held a meeting in Harare to find ways of
dealing with the Mozambican conflict, which is threatening to destabilise the
whole Sadc region. Daily News
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