President Emmerson Mnangagwa picked War Veterans leader
Christopher Mutsvangwa as Information minister before hastily dropping his name
after realising that the law only allowed him to appoint five non-constituency
MPs into his Cabinet.
Mnangagwa dropped Primary and Secondary Education minister
Lazarus Dokora yesterday. He also re-assigned Mutsvangwa and two other people
that had been appointed ministers, Clever Nyathi and Joshua Malinga as
advisors.
However, Standard reporter Obey Manayiti (OM) had already
seized on the opportunity for an exclusive interview with Mutsvangwa (CM) who
spelt out his vision for the ministry.
The former war veterans leader, a close Mnangagwa ally also
revealed why the new president did not include opposition leaders in his
Cabinet. Below are excerpts from the interview.
OM: Congratulations on your appointment, what is in store
for the media industry during your tenure?
CM: I will strive to all my ability to do away with
anything that is regarded as an impediment to free speech and the open flow of
information and ideas.
That is what the new vibrant economic dispensation of
President Mnangagwa will need to deliver the prosperity Zimbabweans expect of
him.
OM: Under former president Robert Mugabe, the private media
was targeted and free speech was suppressed. Are we likely to see any positive
change under the new administration?
CM: I will excise the information statutes of all the
excesses of Jonathan Moyo’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act
(Aippa) and the Public Order and Security Act (Posa).
OM: During the transition that followed the military
takeover, the private media has been starved of information and a case in point
was the announcement of the new Cabinet. The Herald claimed it was an
exclusive, does that point to the new way of doing things?
CM: The military period was a transient period to deal with
a peculiar scenario. Now the president of the Republic has been chosen and has
appointed a Cabinet, things will be done as they should.
I have no particular preferences between private and public
media.
They both serve the same populace who turned up in their
millions two weeks ago, as they clamoured for change.
OM: Many people have expressed disappointment on social
media that the new Cabinet did not meet their expectation because it is neither
inclusive nor lean?
CM: The president of the Republic is completing the term on
a mandate already decided by the 2013 elections. He has constitutional
constraints that emanate from choosing ministers from that pool.
If people have strong feelings on any of the MPs he chose,
their chance will come in the next six to nine months as they vote in 2018
elections.
The power to deal with all sorts of dissatisfaction
emanating from criminality, sloth or incompetence lies primarily at the
national electoral choices.
OM: One of the reasons given by the military to seize
control of government was that the former president was surrounded by
criminals. How come the new Cabinet still has people tainted with corruption
allegations?
CM: Let us not load the new president with burdens that
rightly should be assumed by the voter.
OM: Was it deliberate on the part of Mnangagwa to retain
most of the people that served under Mugabe’s governments that performed dismally?
CM: Zimbabweans are a serious political entity as shown by
their discipline and maturity as they brought Mugabe’s misrule to an end. They
are definitely not a fickle lot. They are going to give their new president
much more time than a week to judge him. After all, Mugabe got a whole gamut of
37 years.
OM: Do you think Zimbabweans are justified in feeling
betrayed by Mnangagwa? How about the large number of soldiers in the new
Cabinet. Does this have anything to do with the events that led to Mugabe stepping
down?
CM: The Zimbabwean military is a much loved institution,
dear to Zimbabweans and more so with their exquisite execution of thwarting a
Grace Mugabe palace coup by marriage certificate.
There is so much goodwill for a few two military faces in
Cabinet, more so, when they are just that competent as Perrence Shiri and his
bountiful command agriculture and the full granaries.
Generals Kelly and Flynn no more turned the Trump
administration into a military junta.
OM: Do you expect the international community to embrace
the new Cabinet given that it has a strong military component?
CM: We cannot be swayed by the sour grapes of a feckless
civil society and indifferent opposition that was long acquiescing to Grace Mugabe
and G40 depredations.
The military deserve plaudits as opposed to sulking
brickbats.
The vibes from our regional super power neighbour South
Africa are good. Second global economy China feels gingered up and is bullish
about President Mnangagwa after the investment miasma of senility ridden
Mugabe.
There are positive noises from Brussels, London and
Washington as they struggle to shirk away their baggage of political clichés of
the past and hopefully they will do so with more haste.
OM: What is the new government’s thrust in Mnangagwa’s
first 100 days?
CM: The inaugural speech focused on the revival of a
comatose economy and that is what Zimbabweans expect.
OM: You are one of the people that were advocating for an
inclusive government, you even went to the extent of chastising Patrick
Chinamasa when he said Zanu PF will go it alone. What happened to the promise
to be inclusive?
CM: The various political parties intervened and deterred
President Mnangagwa from choosing his preferred candidates for Cabinet posts.
They surreptitiously fought for a government of national unity instead of
inclusivity.
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