Zimbabwe Premier Morgan Tsvangirai fighting for the rule of law to be upheldThe Herald reported that the President had put to rest the contentious dispute over functional responsibilities in the critical information management area of the coalition government by relocating supervision of key communication infrastructure to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development.
The decree was read out to the Herald by Presidential and Cabinet Chief Secretary, Dr Misheck Sibanda.
In the past Dr Sibanda together with Public Service Commission Chairman Mariyawanda Nzuwah and Information and Publicity Secretary George Charamba aka Nathaniel Manheru have been fingered in motivating the unconstitutional appointments of 10 Provincial Governors, The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, The Attorney General and lately the Appointment of Permanent Secretaries for 34 Ministries without any evidence of there having been consensus between the principals of Parties to the Coalition Government to that effect.
The underhand appointments in utter disregard of the Constitutional framework under which the Coalition Government is supposed to be operating have proved to be counterproductive as they have created conflict threatening to tear apart the union in government.
Rather than putting to rest the time wasting controversies in the past all the unprocedural decrees has done is create more controversy is the case with the current decree on ICT functions.
Premier Morgan Tsvangirai who is also one of the three principals in the coalition has responded to the new decree in the same manner he has done to previous irregularities.
He declared the decree “null and void” citing its non compliance with articles of the GPA and Constitutional Amendment No 19.
In particular the Presidential decree creating an expanded Ministry of Transport , Communications and Infrastructure Development by merging the agreed upon and Constitutionally provided Ministries of transport and Infrastructure Development to those in the Ministry of Information Communications Technology is not only a legal nullity but a serious breach of the Coalition Constitution that has potential to escalate to the guarantors of the agreement in SADC and the AU if the principals remain in dispute as is the case at present.
Unless the decree is reversed in the next meeting of the Coalition principals it is likely to be referred to the SADC mediator as it is unlikely it will be referred to the Joint Implementation Committee where Minister Goche who has been assigned the new Ministry is a key member with vested interests.
Such action will have the effect of stalling momentum towards addressing key issues of National Healing and Reconciliation, Economic Stabilisation, Humanitarian assistance as the Democratisation agenda preoccupies politicians.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai by declaring the decree announced by Dr Misheck Sibanda, in his capacity as Presidential Secretary, "null and void" has already declared a dispute needing resolution by the principals.
"This not only flies in the face of the letter and spirit of the Global Political Agreement but is also an illegality as the GPA has legal effect," said the Prime Minister.
He was obviously relying on Constitutional Amendment No 19 provisions which created 31 ministries and the subsequent agreement by the principals on the names of those ministries none of which is called the Ministry of transport Communication and infrastructure development as announced by Dr Sibanda as the names of Ministers responsible for the 31 Ministries which assigned ICT to Nelson Chamisa and not Nicholas Goche as announced.
The allocation of mandates to Ministries came into effect via a process of negotiation by the three political parties to the GPA and, as such, can only be reversed through similar processes if need be.
Clearly Dr Misheck Sibanda is leading a cabal of Zanu PF technocrats that is working tirelessly to circumvent inclusivity in the Coalition government because such a development threatens their personal interests.
But it was the response to the call by the President for the MDC leader and Coalition Premier Morgan Tsvangirai to raise his voice in calling for the lifting of sanctions that invited sharper rebuke from the Premier that exposed the lethargic policy gap between the Premier and the President.
The President recently stated that he supports current farm invasions by people claiming to have been allotted land that they never bothered to take occupancy of some 4 to 5 years ago after the premier had called for cessation of unplanned commercial farm invasions to pave way for land audits to address multiple farm ownership and resettle the landless in a planned manner.
He could not be expected to be vocal about lifting the travel ban slapped on the president for his failure to uphold individual property rights enshrined in the country’s Constitution at a time when the same President was not showing any signs of willingness to uphold those rights without being slapped with the same sanctions for his role in perpetuating violation of Constitutional rights of citizens of the country.
He pointed out the as far as he was concerned “there was a more urgent need to condemn farm invasions with one voice.”
He said farm invasions were disruptive and counterproductive and had the effect of condemning the country to perpetual hunger.
In a related development the premier was forced to restate representation ground rules after the unprocedurally appointed Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor Dr Gideon Gono threw in the divisive offer of used RBZ cars for the free utilisation by Members of Parliament in the execution of their functions in Constituencies that elected them.
Once again the premier reminded the MP’s clamouring for the vehicles which in Zimbabwe are status symbols that there was no legal framework for them to secure vehicles for use in their functions from the RBZ and the RBZ governor’s offer was illegal and MPs from his party in particular must resist the temptation of being lured into illegal dealings involving the RBZ Governor.
In party caucus the Premier was more forthright when he threatened any parliamentarian from his formation who takes to the Reserve Bank’s corruption inducing offer of vehicles with immediate expulsion from the Party.
It is unlikely any of the MP’s from the Premier’s party still has the appetite for the RBZ Governor’s offer to MP’s and the bait has lost flavour and in good time too given the raging current debate of Ministerial vehicle allocations.
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