Mnangagwa swears in Soda Zhemu, Anxious Masuka

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday swore in his newly appointed ministers Soda Zhemu and Anxious Masuka at a ceremony held at State House.

Zhemu, who is also legislator for Muzarabani North, is the new Energy and Power Development minister and he replaces the controversially dismissed Fortune Chasi whose removal has opened a can of worms, including alleged infidelity of Mnangagwa.

Chasi’s removal the subsequent replacement with Zhemu has also exposed shadowy deals in which Mnangagwa and his Foreign Affairs minister Sibusiso ‘SB’ Moyo were allegedly the biggest beneficiaries.

On the other hand, Masuka who assumes the headship of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Climate and Rural Resettlement replaces the late Perrance Shiri whose demise was as equally controversial as the dismissal of Chasi from the Energy ministry.

Although the Government confirmed that Shiri succumbed to the deadly Covid19 pandemic, with Mnangagwa puzzlingly bringing the post-mortem results at the funeral wake of the late minister, some of the Shiri family members suspected foul play in circumstances leading to the death of the former military commander.

While Zhemu promised to work towards ensuring that the perrenial power outages bedevilling the country will be a thing of the past, Masuka said he will strive to make agriculture the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy in line with Mnangagwa’s much vaunted Vision 2030 agenda.

Once revered as the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s economic fortunes took a dramatic nosedive during the turn of the 21st century after then president Robert Mugabe introduced a controversial agrarian programme which evicted white commercial farmers from their productive farms and replaced them with landless locals.

Mugabe, who died in 2019, was eventually toppled in a military coup which propelled incumbent leader Mnangagwa to the presidency.

Zwnews