By SW radio
Tue, Sep 22, 2009
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Chief of Staff, Ian Makone, was last week Friday formally appointed by Robert Mugabe as Secretary in the PM's office, after months of ZANU PF resistance. Although a statement from the Office of the President said Makone was a 'Permanent Secretary', Tsvangirai's spokesman James Maridadi told Newsreel his correct title was 'Secretary in the Prime Ministers Office and Council of Ministers'.
Online blogger Denford Magora has suggested that at the same time Mugabe 'quietly' appointed former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo as the new Communications Commissioner in the President's Office. Maridadi however dismissed Magora's report as merely speculation and said he would not dignify it with a response. He however told us appointments in the Presidents Office and Prime Ministers office could be done without consultation, as they had no bearing on the unity deal.
On Tuesday Newsreel was unable to confirm Moyo's 'appointment', and it would be unusual if it had happed as ZANU PF is reportedly still to debate Moyo's re-admission into the party. Calls to Moyo's mobile phone went to voicemail the whole day.
Makone meanwhile becomes the first 'Permanent Secretary' in government who is from the MDC. In the initial dispute over the fact that ZANU PF had all the permanent secretary positions, ZANU PF argued that they could not appoint anyone from the MDC as these were career civil servants who possessed the required qualifications for the job. The MDC eventually capitulated and dropped their demands for representation, agreeing instead to a compromise where their people would be appointed when vacancies arose in the future.
So what does Makone's title and appointment mean? Maridadi told us he becomes the Accounting Officer in the Prime Minister's Office. The PM's office is able to get a budget from the fiscus and Makone is in charge of running that budget. Since the unity government was formed there has been a refusal by ZANU PF to accept that staff members in Tsvangirai's office are civil servants. With Makone in his position it's hoped that this problem will now be resolved.
Last week reports claimed Jonathan Moyo has made a bid to be re-admitted into ZANU PF. In 2005 he clashed with ZANU PF bigwigs over his refusal to step aside from contesting the Tsholotsho parliamentary constituency. He eventually fell out with the party he so vociferously defended as Information Minister. His tenure in this ministry saw the most draconian pieces of legislation passed and used, to suppress the media. He crafted and used the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) to shut down several newspapers and brought in broadcasting regulations that blocked private broadcasters from operating, despite Capital Radio successfully challenging the governments broadcasting monopoly in the Supreme Court.
There is much speculation that ZANU PF is already mobilizing for elections in 2011 and Mugabe wants to rope in Moyo, to continue the clampdown he so successfully engineered from 2000 to 2005
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