Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

SADC Heads of State at a meeting of the regional body in Swaziland after the formation of Zimbabwe's Coalition Government. The regional body says there is no deadlock in Zimbabwe "The first hundred days of Zimbabwe's Unity Government were given the seal of approval by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which dismissed any notion that the fledgling government was facing difficulties - a view not shared by Western donors," reports IRIN, the United Nations news service. Tomaz Salomao, the Executive Secretary of the regional body, told the news agency yesterday that SADC was happy with the strides made by the Zimbabwe Unity Government so far, according to a story issued by IRIN here . The Executive Secretary says no deadlock has been declared to them "but we are happy with what they have achieved so far." As I told you before, Tsvangirai appears to be working against his own party on this supposed deadlock. He is happy to let Mugabe get the Perma...

25 February 2009: Morgan Tsvangirai, flanked by Arthur Mutambara, announces that the appointments of Permanent Secretaries are null and void. Yesterday, he capitulated and ALL of Mugabe's Permanent Secretaries have been reappointed, as announced by the Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda. Tsvangirai has accepted this, driving his National Council even crazier with rage that he would accept such a slap in the face. Every single Permanent Secretary appointed by Mugabe has been reinstated and confirmed in the post, President Mugabe's Office said last night. On Tuesday, in a meeting of the Principals soon after Cabinet, Mugabe asked Mariyawanda Nzuwa, Chairman of the Public Service Commission and Misheck Sibanda, Secretary to the President and Cabinet, to come in and explain to Tsvangirai why none of his suggested nominees were qualified to be permanent secretaries of any ministry They did this Mugabe then threw in a sweetener and said he would give the MDC-T...

Not long ago, Dr Simba Makoni spoke about what he called the "classic Yes Minister style" of Zimbabwe's government. For those who do not know, Yes Minister is a British comedy set in Whitehall, the seat of the government of the United Kingdom. In the comedy, people like Sir Humphrey actually run government business, telling a minister what he can and can not do, getting up to all sorts of tricks to ensure that their agenda (which they say is the national agenda), carries the day. Dr Makoni mentioned the issue of speeches, for instance. When he took over at the Ministry of Finance, he found that his speeches were written for him by the civil servants.  Worse, these speeches would not be given to him until just before he got into his car to go to the function where they were to be delivered. To get around this, and being a fully technologically literate person, he asked for a computer to be put into his office. He also demanded that the computer be given Internet and intran...

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, flanked by Deputy PM Arthur Mutambara at a press conference this afternoon where he announced that he was nullyfying President Mugabe's appointment of Permanent Secretaries. Morgan Tsvangirai was summoned to State House today by Robert Mugabe about an hour after the Prime Minister  issued his statement nullyfying all appointments of Permanent Secretaries announced by Mugabe yesterday. Tsvangirai, during his press conference at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, said the PermSecs who were in the jobs on September 15 should stay in their posts and also directly challenged Mugabe by declaring the appointments "null and void". The meeting at the State House is still going on, I am told. Tsvangirai's statement was particularly noteworthy for the pains it took to avoid Mugabe's name and even the Office of The President. Tsvangirai merely said "no civil servant" has the power to unilaterally appoint Perm Secs. He also stated...