Mnangagwa’s ministers ‘cancel festive season travel to meet set targets’
HARARE - Zimbabwe’s newly sworn-in cabinet ministers are reportedly “putting in extra hours every day to meet targets” set by President Emmerson Mnangagwa “as a new work ethic takes root in government.”
According to the stateowned Sunday Mail newspaper, Mnangagwa had tasked every minister to come up with at least three target-driven economic projects with a 100-day turnaround period.
The project proposals were due this week.
It would be remembered that in his first speech as the president of Zimbabwe on November 24, Mnangagwa sent a stern warning to public officials who did not display commitment to their jobs.
“To our civil servants, it cannot be business as usual. You have to roll up your sleeves in readiness to deliver. We have an economy to recover, a people to serve,” Mnangagwa said during his inauguration speech at the National Sports Stadium in Harare.
“A new culture must now inform and animate our daily conduct,” he said.
The Sunday Mail said that most ministers had since cancelled their 2017 festive season travel to focus on the projects.
President Mnangagwa himself was also spending much time at work, the report said.
Mnangagwa last week swore in a new cabinet that included ruling party loyalists as well as figures in the military, whose takeover helped oust former leader Robert Mugabe.
Mnangagwa said after the ceremony that the priority was to revive Zimbabwe’s battered economy.
Among the new cabinet members were Major General Sibusiso Moyo, the foreign minister, and Air Marshal Perrance Shiri, the agriculture minister.