ED, the so-called Listening President who is calculative like Mugabe

Zwnews Chief Correspondent

The current reshuffling of top government officials, (permanent Secretaries) by President Emmerson Mnangagwa (ED) has earned him the listening ‘president’ name tag.

As if to rubber stamp the promises he made to be a listening leader, ED made some moves that seemingly resembled what people were clamoring for, the retiring of some tired and old horses.

Starting from ministers, he brought new faces, new blood, some of them technocrats.

Then came time for the people who run ministries, permanent secretaries, ED again made sweeping changes, re-assigning others, at the same time retiring some of the tired horses.

However, some have expressed fears that, the retired secretaries would be re-invented into the system again, thereby joining top level ghost workers bandwagon.

These fears come high on the heels of a similar move by Mnangagwa, when he recently promoted former cabinet ministers to positions in which they would be giving orders to the new ministers.

One analyst once said that the patronage system has multiple layers, to the extent that some retired dead wood could find their way back into positions of influence via the back door.

One such analyst to express reservations on the recent reshuffling of permanent secretaries is Elder Mabhunu, he says the retiring of the tired horses, should be taken with a pinch of salt.

“It is too early to celebrate the fall of the of the old order, some of these could just had been stored somewhere for future use.

“Remember what happened to the sidelined former cabinet ministers, they are now ‘prime ministers’ to whom the new ministers report,” he says.

He added that Mnangagwa is so calculative and just like his mentor Robert Mugabe, he keeps his cards close to his chest.

Meanwhile, Mnangagwa’s recent moves have been viewed by many as a way to do away with the Mugabe set up. Through putting those who have shown true allegiance to him close, at the same time not rocking the boat by throwing the old guards far away.