‘Mugabe must take cue from Magufuli’

By Jeffrey Muvundusi

Former Industry minister Nkosana Moyo has challenged President Robert Mugabe to take a cue from Tanzania’s leader, John Magufuli, by cutting on profligate expenditure instead of splurging hefty sums on a lavish birthday party.

He said “under normal circumstances, it’s probably time he (Mugabe) would go and rest and…spend time with his family, children and grandchildren”.

Moyo, who was appointed by Mugabe to his Cabinet in July 2000 but uncharacteristically resigned in May 2001 after publicly speaking out against attacks on businesses and factories by war veterans, said the nonagenarian leader’s administration has a penchant of “eating what they didn’t kill”.

He said the culture has precipitated poverty and misery among long-suffering Zimbabweans.

“What happened in Tanzania when Magufuli became president, he looked at all of the expenditures of government and slashed costs and in fact, when he was supposed to be inaugurated, there was supposed to be a dinner afterwards.

“He cancelled it because he said there was no justification for him to have that expensive dinner to celebrate his becoming president, instead he should be redirecting the resources of State to help the quality of life of the citizens rather than have a big bash,” Moyo told the Daily News in an exclusive interview yesterday.

The former banker — also the executive chairman and founder of the Mandela Institute for Development Studies — was not a member of the ruling Zanu PF party when he was appointed minister, but was hand-picked as a technocrat to give credence to the party’s economic policies.

Moyo slammed Mugabe’s 93rd birthday party slated for Rhodes Estate Preparatory School (REPS) in Matobo district in Matabeleland South on Saturday.

“I would have thought that people around the president (Mugabe) should have advised him that . . . it does not send a good signal to be spending so much money at such a celebration like a birthday. They should at least show compassion towards the suffering masses,” the former World Bank’s International Finance Corporation staffer added.

While Zanu PF did not disclose the total amount to be spent on the lavish bash this time around, Mugabe’s birthday held in Masvingo last year gobbled a total of

$1,1 million.

Commenting on the intensifying factional brawling in Zanu PF, Moyo said the infighting was hitting the economy.

“Are the people who are fighting for succession paying any attention to the economy? . . . I think they are now all consumed with the succession battles. I don’t imagine that there is much time they are spending to look at what they could do to make the plight of citizens improve. I think they are caught up on who is going to take over from the president,” he said.

Quizzed about his presidential ambitions as has been touted in some social media platforms, Moyo said: “I want to be an active citizen and not returning to being a politician, a member of parliament and aspiring to go to the top. That has not come to mind yet.”

“No one has approached me, but maybe if am approached, I will have to think about it. I have been there in Cabinet and I saw that it’s not workable. If anyone is going to approach me, then he has to explain to me what has really changed comparing the time I was in Cabinet,” he added.

Moyo said there is no hope and the economy will never change for the better under Zanu PF’s leadership and administration. Daily News