‘President alive to law on ministerial appointments’

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa is alive to the constitutional requirement for him to appoint up to five Cabinet ministers from outside Parliament and will find legally valid space to accommodate officials he appointed this week, Presidential Press secretary Mr George Charamba said yesterday.

The Head of State and Government appointed a 22-member Cabinet on Thursday, which saw new faces coming into Government.

He also appointed six deputy ministers and 10 provincial affairs ministers. More than five of those appointed are neither Senators nor National Assembly members.

Section 104 (3) of the Constitution states that “Ministers and deputy-ministers are appointed from among Senators or Members of the National Assembly, but up to five, chosen for their professional skills and competence, may be appointed from outside Parliament.”

The ministers-designate are yet to take the oath of office. Mr Charamba said the new ministers would only be sworn-in after the law was “fully satisfied”.

“Following last night’s (Thursday) announcement of ministers-designate, His Excellency the President is aware that there is a legal issue which begs in order to effect those appointments,” he said.

“At law, he is only allowed five ministerial appointments which means he has to find legally valid space for the other ministers in order to make them appointable. He is alive to that problem. Except, his preoccupation is in assembling a goal-getting team, which triggers movement in the economy as outlined in his acceptance speech.”

Mr Charamba said President Mnangagwa, a lawyer, respected the country’s supreme law.

“At law, ministers become substantive once they are sworn-in and that has not happened and may not happen until and unless the law is fully satisfied and it won’t be long,” he said.

“The good thing is the people of Zimbabwe now know who their Cabinet members are likely to be for purposes of forward planning. More importantly, they can easily surmise from the designated persons what the new thrust and tempo is going to be. You will be hearing from us soon.”

The new ministers-designate without constituencies include Air Force of Zimbabwe Commander Air Marshal Perrance Shiri (Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement), Major-General Sibusiso Moyo (Foreign Affairs and International Trade), Cde Christopher Mutsvangwa (Information, Media and Broadcasting Services), Cde July Moyo (Local Government, Public Works and National Housing), Professor Amon Murwira (Higher Education, Science and Technology Development) and Professor Clever Nyathi (Labour and Social Welfare).

Others are Mimosa Mining Company executive chairman Mr Winston Chitando (Mines and Mining Development), Cde Victor Matemadanda (Deputy Minister for War Veterans) and Pupurai Togarepi (Deputy Minister for Youth Affairs).

The new appointments saw previous line ministries with functional duplications being merged.