Hon Nelson Chamisa’s baptism of fire

Under Pressure ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa

Welcome to the workplace politics of backstabbing, positioning and survival of the fittest Honourable Minister Nelson Chamisa. It’s a bit different from the populist sloganeering at rallies and you need to be strong if you are to make a difference in the highly regulated Cabinet environment. Whipping emotions is not the best response as you will soon find out.

The Ministry of Information and Publicity has caused so many traumas in Zimbabwe ever since it was assigned to Professor Jonathan Moyo.

The MDC tried hard to neutralise the aura of this Ministry during SADC mediated negotiations on which the current coalition government is premised.

They managed to split the Ministry into two halves with one aspect covering media and publicity services and the other being assigned to manage information communication technology and development.
As expected Zanu PF bargained for the frontline publicity and media segment of the Ministry forgetting that the effectiveness of that division depended heavily on the technological support under its control.

The importance of dominion over access to the web and broadcasting frequencies as well as posts and telecommunications fixed and mobile in today’s global communication only became apparent when Information and Publicity Minister from Zanu PF Webster Shamu tried to assert his authority on the mobile communications service providers only to be accused of encroaching on Information Communication Technology Minister from the MDC Nelson Chamisa’s area of responsibility.

With Shamu having been outwitted in the Information and Publicity segment by his Deputy from the MDC Jameson Timba who had managed to reign in on Information and Publicity Secretary George Charamba to cease publishing political inciting articles under the Nathaniel Manheru column in the Herald it became evident that the Media and publicity segment was no longer going to be as effective at promoting and sprucing the tattered Zanu PF image as it hitherto was.

Meanwhile the Media Technology segment Zanu PF had considered irrelevant and unworthy of it assigning a Deputy to shadow Nelson Chamisa was emerging the more critical function in Information management and since the allotments had been agreed and implemented with no room for Zanu PF to assign someone to shadow the Minister in that critical area Zanu PF technocratic advisors who had overlooked that reality were tasked to correct it somehow.

George Charamba being the permanent secretary for Information and Publicity and therefore chief internal information management consultant for the Zanu PF Party was taken to task as to how he could have overlooked such a critical information Management area to in his advice to the extent of allowing it to fall into the exclusive management of the MDC.

That was when he initially advised Minister Shamu to grab back the responsibility a move that misfired when Chamisa resisted and referred the matter to the Premier who in turn advised Minister Shamu to stay clear of the Communication technology companies and Parastatals.

Most of the nefarious snooping activities by Defence Intelligence, Central Intelligence and Police intelligence that resulted in MDC activists being abducted in night raids were done through the ICT infrastructure that was now under the youthful MDC Minister’s control and there were obvious reasons for these State Security organs to fear that in time the Minister will access their frequencies and whistle blow them whenever they embarked on cynical political gerrymandering activities as they had freely done in the past causing untold suffering within MDC ranks.

So it was that when Minister Shamu came back to Charamba and advised him that the smash and grab route they had planned and agreed upon had hit the wall in the Premier’s Office and would not sail through that route, he went to Dr Sibanda to use the familiar tactic of getting President Mugabe to sign documents making key appointments in breach of the GNU without him suspecting any cynical intentions on the part of his two closest technical advisors after Dr Gideon Gono and the Military commanders namely Dr Sibanda and Charamba.

This was the same technique the duo had employed to get the President to unilaterally appoint the 10 Provincial Governors, extent Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono’s term of office, promote Johannes Tomana to Attorney General and confirm 34 permanent Secretaries as substantive heads of Ministries in contravention of the GPA.

President Mugabe’s eyesight is severely limited and he is made to sign many documents contents of which he has never read. In the case of the controversial appointments and promotions he has been made to sign Charamba and Sibanda have been careful to disclose that this was how they felt Zanu PF would retain power and getting Mugabe to agree verbally before sneaking in the appointment confirmation documents for his signature.

After a while they then ask Dr Sibanda to announce the presidential decree and when they are called in to explain why there is an outcry from the MDC over appointments they will remind Mugabe of the date and time he gave the appointments the green light and since the appointments will be in favour of Zanu PF he will express reservations and ask them to prepare strong supporting evidence that he will use in their defence in meetings with Premier Tsvangirai and Deputy Premier Professor Mutambara.

The ZimSentinel is reliably informed from sources close to goings on in the coalition government that the unfinished business concerning the disputed appointments of Provincial Governors, Dr Gono, Ambassadors and Permanent Secretaries will be finalised by 30 April 2009 at the very latest.

Meanwhile there is concern that Minister Chamisa is squirming to early and thus causing unnecessary National alarm and despondency over issues, challenges and concerns he can get resolved by resorting to seeking intra party structures support before responding to calculated speculative prods by under siege Zanu PF advisers seeking to extricate themselves from messy power struggles in Zanu PF by exploiting the youthful Minister’s inexperience with workplace politics and effective conflict resolution mechanism for that.

The MDC is not unduly worried by the Herald disclosure that the Minister has had his Ministry reduced to a shell as such announcements would not be announced by a Civil Servant like Dr Misheck Sibanda if at all they have been agreed upon by the Principals to the GPA as they represent a fundamental departure from the GPA and transitional constitutional arrangements bonding the GPA.

Sources simply pointed out that in the GPA signed on 15 September 2008 there is no mention of a Ministry of Transport and Communication and therefore none of the Principals to the GPA could successfully create such a Ministry and assign it to a Minister without a tripartite agreement in that regard.

They further pointed out that in the past Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa who was Zanu PF’s Chief Negotiator in SADC mediated talks has been foiled on two occasions when he attempted to smuggle behind the scenes agreements he had secured from President Mugabe post the negotiating table and the same fate awaited the purported unilateral changes to the Ministry of Information Communication Technology and Ministry of Transport portfolios.

They pointed out that Minister Chamisa must take heart from the manner in which the MDC has managed to handle the disputed appointments of the Governors and Permanent Secretaries which despite purported and or confirmed Presidential support are still very much on the agenda of JOMIC and or the Principals.

In that respect it will be long before the purported streamlining of any Ministry by anyone can be carried out unless it is by mutual consent of the Principals which in the case of his Ministry is not the case.

Meanwhile on the ground the ZimSentinel has it on good authority that Chief Makumbe was summoned to attend the Buhera Police Station after the burial of the Premier’s grandson Shaun over incidents of violence where police wanted him to explain by what authority he had ordered those that knew the people who had prejudiced them of property to recover it without going through the courts.

Chief Makumbe was accompanied to the police station by Deputy Minister of transport and Infrastructure development Dr Tichaona Mudzingwa who was at the funeral.

The Officer Commanding was all apologies after he was quizzed as to his whereabouts when the property owners were dispossessed of their assets and why he did not order the arrest of the criminals but now finds the energy to arrest a chief who has directed that restitution of stolen property was a first step in the quest for National Healing and Reconciliation in post conflict Zimbabwe.

These are the positives that are accruing from the entry of the MDC in the coalition government that are being clouded by Hon Chamisa’s squirming at every turn when his job is threatened. We urge him to stop the public outcries and starts pushing his weight around if his peers in government are toying with him.

Invading the Ministry of Information and Publicity institutions like ZBH and The Herald without notifying Minister Shamu would be a good starting point for a change.