Vice president Kembo Mohadi addressing journalists after a meeting with senior doctors at munhumutapa offices recently - Pic Annie Mpalume

We are a junta govt — Mohadi

By Sindiso Mhlope Last updated Jun 4, 2020

Sindiso Mhlophe
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
mhlophes@dailynews.co.zw

©️ VICE PRESIDENT Kembo Mohadi yesterday admitted that the current administration led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa is a “junta” regime, appealing for patience from long-suffering Zimbabweans as the country’s economy has hit rock bottom.

This comes as the government has faced criticism for being “military-led”, with the United States at the weekend listing it as one of its foreign adversaries, accusing it of stirring anti-racism protests in the super power after the killing of African-American George Floyd by police.

Addressing delegates during a tour of the University of Zimbabwe’s (UZ) Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) production facility, Mohadi appealed for patience while the government works on turning around the economy.

“Now that we have started this, placing our universities at the forefront of the economic fight, saying that you have got the education, we have sent you to school and we now want you to liberate this economy and this country and you are doing exactly that.

“We hope, therefore, that in a few years to come Zimbabwe will be different from what it is today. You just have to bear with us.

“I know it is very difficult. We have had two years of successive droughts, we haven’t been getting adequate rains to feed into our agriculture so we suffered a lot.

“We are required now to import a lot of food and some basic commodities, but be that as it may, I’m sure we are going to conquer because failure or defeat has never been our option in Zimbabwe,” Mohadi said.

“Yes, quite a lot of things are being said, especially about this government which is being spearheaded by comrade (Emmerson) Mnangagwa.

“Some say it is a junta. I have said to those that are saying that it is a junta, yes it is so what else did you want it to be?
“Because the people that were civilians who led this organisation are no longer there, they are all dead and the ones that are at the helm now, are the ones that went through military training and it is me, Mnangagwa and (Vice President Constantino) Chiwenga.

“So if this is your definition of a junta, then let it be. We can’t have it otherwise and that is a fact,” he added.
A junta is often used to refer to a military or political group that rules a country after taking power by force, and this name came into effect after Mnangagwa’s administration took over power form the late former president Robert

Mugabe after a military intervention led by then Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander, Chiwenga.

Mohadi added that due to economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the United States, the country had been isolated for a long time and it was up to the young generation to bring economic emancipation and revive the ailing economy.

He said Zimbabwe must find a way out of its current problems.
“When you are cornered and you are by yourself, you always find ways of getting out and that is what we are doing.
“Zimbabwe is going to get out of this predicament and when we do it, we will have done it on our own and we will be a force to reckon with,” he said.

Mohadi commended the UZ for assisting in the fight against Covid-19 through producing PPE.

“We as Zimbabwe, like other countries, we have not been spared by Covid-19 which started in China and has now engulfed the world.
“As the government we found it proper to put together a task force that could spearhead the coming up of measures to stop the spread of Covid-19.

“In doing so we found that there were many things we didn’t have such as the personal protective equipment to contain the virus. The virus has no cure so the only way to stop it is by preventing it.
“That is what the University of Zimbabwe has been asked to produce through the ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education because we don’t have enough foreign currency to import PPE,” he said.

Meanwhile, UZ vice-chancellor Paul Mapfumo indicated that the university now has the capacity to produce 7 000 masks, 100 000 litres of sanitiser, 150 medical gowns and 100 scrubs daily.

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