Twelve Zimbabwe cabinet ministers and their deputies who failed to secure seats in either the House of Assembly or Senate and were subsequently not appointed non-constituency MPs had their executive appointments terminated last week, The Herald reported on Saturday.
A Government insider was quoted by the daily newspaper as saying that the ministers and their deputies, who number 12 in total, received letters of termination signed by the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda.
Though no official confirmation could be obtained at the time of writing, the Secretary for Information and Publicity George Charamba indicated that President Mugabe was going ahead with the formation of a new government.
This is pursuant to the invitation he extended to the two MDC formations to submit their preferred lists of ministers and for their leaders to come forward and be sworn into office in line with the Sep. 15 agreement.
According to the broad-based agreement, Mugabe remains Head of State and Government with Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Arthur Mutambara coming on board as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister respectively.
"It is not my place to announce appointments or disappointments of an executive nature. What I can tell you though is that President Mugabe has already started preparing an administration," Charamba said.
"He is taking steps towards an early realisation of the formation of a new Government as per the mandate given to him by all three parties to the dialogue," he said.
The ministers affected are Samuel Mumbengegwi (Finance), Sikhanyiso Ndlovu (Information and Publicity), Oppah Muchinguri (Gender, Women's Affairs and Community Development), Munacho Mutezo(Water Resources and Development), Michael Nyambuya (Energy and Power Development) and Amos Midzi (Mines and Mining Development).
Others are Chen Chimutengwende (Public and Interactive Affairs) and Sithembiso Nyoni (Small and Medium Enterprises Development).
Rugare Gumbo (Agriculture) lost in the Zanu-PF primaries as did deputy ministers Kenneth Mutiwekuziva (SMEs), David Chapfika (Agriculture) and Edwin Muguti (Health and Child Welfare).
This means the portfolios of Agriculture and SMEs have lost both their ministers and their deputies.
However, the Minister of Transport and Communications Christopher Mushohwe, and his Education, Sport and Culture counterpart Aeneas Chigwedere were not affected following their appointments as governors of Manicaland and Mashonaland East respectively.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa and the Minister of Agricultural Engineering, Mechanisation and Irrigation Joseph Made were also retained since President Mugabe had already appointed them to the Senate.
Observers said indications were that President Mugabe was definitely proceeding with the formation of a new government as evidenced by the termination of the incumbency of the affected individuals and the recent meeting between Cde Mugabe and MDC leader Professor Arthur Mutambara.
This view has received added impetus by revelations that Zanu-PF's negotiators to the inter-party talks would soon meet Thabo Mbeki's facilitation team in South Africa "to discuss how best to proceed in light of MDC-T's apparent reluctance to allow progress".
Source:Xinhua
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