‘Mnangagwa sabotaged ZimAsset to justify 2017 coup’ – Jonathan Moyo

Exiled former cabinet Minister Jonathan Moyo claims the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) was a useful economic blueprint which was sabotaged by then Vice President (now President) Emmerson Mnangagwa to justify his November 2017 coup.

ZimAsset was launched by the late former President Robert Mugabe in 2013 after he won controversial elections. The economic blueprint was expected to focus on a ‘People Centered Government’ that prides itself in promoting equitable development and prosperity for all Zimbabweans, whilst leveraging its own resources.

It was touted as a panacea to the country’s plethora of challenges, but the policy dismally failed to breathe life into the ailing economy, especially in terms of job creation until it ended in 2018.

Moyo, who was a key technocrat in the formulation of ZimAsset said Mnangagwa backtracked the implementation of the policy document to justify the military coup that ousted Mugabe in November 2017.

“I’m proud of the work that we did to come up with ZimAsset, the technical policy document, absolutely proud; sad that its implementation was sabotaged by Emmerson Mnangagwa, who as VP supervised economic ministries, to pave the way for and justify his Nov 2017 power grab by force!” he said.

“ZimAsset was for implementation from Oct 2013 to June 2018, but Mnangagwa sabotaged it from January 2015; by 2016 he had replaced it with Command Agriculture through which nearly USD 2 billion was stolen using TBs issued by Patrick Chinamasa, some of which funded the coup!”

After grabbing power, Mnangagwa launched his own economic policy bordering around what he called the Vision 2030. He said his target was to transform Zimbabwe into a middle-income economy by 2030. Nehanda Radio