Two weeks ago, Emmerson Mnangagwa named what he called his best performing Ministers for 2024.
Transport Minister Felix Mhona was rated the best while the runners-up were Agriculture Minister Dr Anxious Masuka and July Moyo, now Energy Minister but former Public Service and Labour supremo.
But in the court of public opinion, in spite of their awards for stardom, ED’s so-called excellent performers are just but false stars in a class of dunderheads.
There is no virgin in a maternity ward. It is trite to name “performing” Ministers in a non-performing Cabinet that has dismally failed to uplift the living conditions of the people of this country.
In my days at Tsatse primary school in Domboshava, there was what was called “the dark seat.” The dark seat was any seat in what was group six in my Grade 7B class, then taught by my uncle Mr Norman Gombera.
Group six comprised those academically ungifted students who needed utmost help, guidance and patience from the teacher. Nobody coveted a seat in that tainted group.
Mnangagwa’s Cabinet reminds me of the dark seats of Group six in our Grade 7B class. It was almost impossible that the dark seats of group six would ever produce star students.
ED’s underwhelming Cabinet from which he chose his “star performers” reminded me of our group six students that sat around a huge, common desk in a dark corner in that Grade 7B classroom that shared a wall with the office of the headmaster, Mr Fungura, at Tsatse primary school a few decades ago.
Contrary to the outstanding performance yarn that ED sought to spin to us, there certainly cannot be any outstanding performers in a non-performing “group six” Cabinet.
This week, I delve into why the generality of Zimbabweans were shocked by the medals awarded to these false stars in ED’s dismal class of dunderheads.
These “stars” have presided over massive rot in their respective ministries.
ED’s top three students in the dunderheads class of 2024:
1. The Star Boy: Felix Mhona, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development
Mhona is the guy presiding over a non-existent public transport system
He is the guy responsible for the country’s poor roads in our cities, towns and across the rural countryside.
The public transport system is dead and in its place is a rotten system replete with creaky, unroadworthy buses and small vehicles known as mushikashika that are chaotically plying the various routes across the vast span of the country’s dilapidated roads.
Passenger rail transport is now virtually non-existent, though the President recently appeared not to be aware of this.
Antiquated, ramshackle rail cars parked idly at the various train stations in the railway ecosystem have become an eyesore across the country.
The unused train stations have themselves become brothels, drug dens and playgrounds for street children and homeless people, derisively known as vagrants.
Moreover, whatever remnant of the public transport system still functioning pays little or no regard whatsoever to access by disabled persons, in brazen violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), to which Zimbabwe is a signatory.
The rehabilitation of the much-touted Beitbridge-Chirundu highway, a strategic continental trunk road that connects the huge South African market to the rest of Africa, has become a permanent chorus that has not been completed for years.
Targets for completion of this strategic road, the spine of Africa’s trade routes, have been serially missed due to underfunding, non-payment of contractors and inflated pricing meant to facilitate kickbacks for the ruling elite.
In terms of air transport, we have an almost non-existent airline in Air Zimbabwe, once the pride of Africa’s airlines. On paper, the airline has just six passenger planes, 45 years after independence.
Official reports indicate that of the six planes, the airline’s Boeing 737-200 is one of the last such planes of this model in the world.
That plane is a relic of antiquity or a living dinosaur in the world of aeroplanes and that may be the reason why the airline authorities have officially christened that aircraft Mbuya Nehanda!
Every week, there is an accident on Zimbabwe’s poor parlous roads where the VID and the police make a killing through bribes, paying no attention whatsoever to road safety and the roadworthiness of vehicles.
The Ministry of Finance has stated that 2 percent of the national budget is spent on accident-related costs.
The indirect costs of our dilapidated roads are mammoth and the World Health Organisation has stated that road accidents in Zimbabwe lead to an estimated 1, 3 million days of lost productivity annually.
Between January and May 2024, Zimbabwe recorded 21 183 road accidents resulting in 260 deaths– an average of six deaths per day.
And yet the Minister presiding over all this rot was Mnangagwa’s star boy who was bandied the best performing Minister in Zimbabwe.
Also shocking was the fact that the Zimbabwe National Road Authority (ZINARA) under Mhona’s ministry, which collects millions that are not reinvested in resuscitating the dilapidated road infrastructure, was named the best performer in the Revenues Collecting Authorities category.
Mnangagwa’s report card of Mhona was so flowery that one would wonder whether we are living in the same country.
According to ED’s evaluation, Mhona’s leadership reportedly included rehabilitating major roads, introducing smart traffic management systems to ease urban congestion, and strengthening public-private partnerships to boost infrastructure funding.
What balderdash!
2. First Runner-Up: Dr Anxious Masuka, Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries, and Rural Development
This is the guy who presides over the nation’s hunger and the perennial food imports, even though at the beginning of every season in the past few years, he has always projected a rosy future of food surplus in the country.
Fine, when it comes to food security, there are other variables outside human control such as drought and climate change. But there have been serious man-made disasters in the ministry of Agriculture, which ED has touted as the best-run ministry in the past few years.
Twenty-five years after the land reform programme, Zimbabwe has lost its status as the bread basket of Africa and has instead become a basket case.
The GMB’s Strategic Grain Reserve has always failed to maintain adequate capacity to feed the nation, despite numerous assurances by government that the SGR silos are full.
As recently conceded by Masuka himself, the private sector has been instrumental in mitigating grain shortages in the country.
The private sector, he said, has had to import 1, 35 million tons of grain between April 2024 and February 2025, comprising 1,13 million tons of maize, 220 092 tons of wheat and 374 tons of wheat flour.
Masuka’s ministry has also overseen dwindling livestock in the country and in 2024, Matabeleland South province alone lost 3 500 cattle due to diseases.
Moreover, Mnangagwa’s “star” Agriculture Minister is the one who presides over the murky Command Agriculture programme, which has been an avenue for massive looting and avarice by the ruling elite.
Command Agriculture has been a disaster as it has been a key avenue for pilferage by the kleptocratic political class.
In 2022, an explosive report by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee exposed how the Finance Minister and the central bank governor had overseen the murky approval of Treasury Bills that burdened government (the taxpayers) with a staggering debt of nearly US$1,6 billion.
And today, the star-boy Ministry is proceeding to unconstitutionally reverse the land reform programme by creating a land cartel.
A land implementation committee headed by Kuda Tagwirei is active in pursuing this monumentally unconstitutional enterprise.
And ED tells us the Minister overseeing such rot is a star performer.
Give us a break!
3 Second Runner-Up: July Moyo, the former Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare
As for July Moyo, the less said about him, the better.
He has been a disaster in both his current and former portfolios.
Currently, there is no power in the country. He has neither the capacity nor energy to run the Energy ministry.
Of course, we know he was conferred this top award for his role as Minister of Public service, Labour and Social Welfare in 2024. This is the same guy who has presided over low pensions that are not enough for cover just the bus fare of our pensioners.
Moyo is the same guy who presided over the low morale in the civil service owing to low salaries and poor working conditions, particularly in the key sectors of health and education which have been hit by serious brain drain.
For this low morale in the country’s civil service, ED thinks his top ally deserves an award as one of the best performers in government.
It’s a sick joke.
Conclusion: Time to evaluate the evaluator
As stated earlier, we were all shocked that there could be “excellent performers” in this rotten, non-performing Cabinet.
As explained in this piece, ED’s top performers are all false stars who have presided over massive rot in their respective ministries.
There can’t be any top performer in a non-performing Cabinet. As stated earlier, there is no virgin in a maternity ward, just as there cannot be any winner in a losing team.
Perhaps it all speaks about the aptitude of Mnangagwa himself.
Indeed, the evaluator himself needs serious evaluation if he sees stars in this legendary Cabinet of dunces.
Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. He is a journalist and a political scientist. You can interact with him through his Facebook page or via the X handle @ luke_tambo.
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