MEMBER of the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) Shingi Munyeza has said that in his view, the “so-called” New Dispensation led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been more intolerant to divergent views, more oppressive and more brutal, and the most corrupt lot ever since independence.
Munyeza who has been very critical of the President and his Government, made the revelations while speaking to Spotlight Zimbabwe, an online publication based in the diaspora.
The cleric said it was beyond the capacity of the Mnangagwa government to turn around the economy as policy inconsistency has worsened over the past two years.
“We have had the most policy inconsistent period over the last two years than ever where we have produced an average of one statutory instrument per working day!” Munyeza said.
“This is how our policy framework has been changing and enforced by the law, basically rule by law and not rule of law. Capital follows the rule of law. This has caused our competent and capable human capital to go where it’s safe and appreciated, basically rule by law and not rule of law.
“The so called new dispensation has been worse than the old one in my view. They have been more intolerant to divergent views, more oppressive and more brutal, yet the most corrupt lot ever since independence,” said the hotelier and entrepreneur who is also a Senior Pastor at Faith Ministries.
Munyeza said corruption is embedded in the Zanu-PF DNA and the whole system has captured the State institutions beyond reform.
“… this is an evil, brutal, oppressive and corrupt system which is controlled by strongmen and strongwomen who are only after personal and selfish gain. They will stop at nothing to feed their greedy and selfish desires.
“Over the past 40 years they have institutionalized themselves in all structures and institutions of Zimbabwe thereby capturing the state and resultantly bringing fear to all its citizens.
“The source of their power has been the occult, which has been evil and resulted in blood spilling on many occasions over the past 40 years. We therefore need to reset and reboot and dismantle the evil system to heal and rebuild a united Zimbabwe leaving in peace and harmony bringing about sustained prosperity. At the moment we are faced with state failure where the state cannot feed its people, protect or lead us into prosperity.”
In view of that, Munyeza said nothing good will come for Zimbabwe as long Zanu-PF was in power.
“Basically we have a bad tree as part of our leadership which is incapable of giving good fruit, regardless of how hard they try.
“Our foundations are wrong and it does not matter how we build, the building will still collapse. We therefore need to relay the foundations of our nation and come up with values that bind us together and a leadership that serves the people and not itself,” he said.
Munyeza defended his continued presence in the PAC, saying he was not exactly “supping with the devil” by working with people who support the President with ideas.
“I believe every believer is on a mandate to advance God’s kingdom and that’s what I’m doing. It means that we must occupy every territory and not surrender it to the devil. My role in PAC is a simple statement to say God wants to see righteousness everywhere particularly in positions of authority. If we don’t do that we abdicate our responsibility as salt and light.
“I should state it here that I’m neither a paid or an elected official and I have no direct or indirect benefit from the system. No one owns me except Jesus Christ, yet I belong to everyone as salt and light. My role is to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world at PAC. I will not let go until I’m fired,” he declared.
Mangwana said Munyeza has the opportunity of whistling in the ears of the President as is expected from members of the PAC, but he has instead been “raving and ranting on social media platforms against the Government.”
Mangwana added that Munyeza should use his PAC position instead of playing to the gallery to score political goals under clerical robes and the Bible.
“(Mr) Munyeza should not hide behind the Bible when giving political rants. We want to respect men of God, but we are not going to treat religious charlatans, who are not courageous enough to come into the political arena like the rest but hide behind the Holy Book and start issuing political edicts disguised as sermons, with kid gloves,” he said.
“Religious leaders should be unifying and rallying people’s hope not to preach hate and prejudiced diatribes. What Mr Munyeza is spewing is eccentric and divisive heresy.
“One wonders why one would be so packed with bitterness that they can’t find time to speak to the President who they are supposed to be advising but choose to grandstand and issue unsolicited and accursed lambaste like an evil oracle,” said Mangwana.
It also emerged that Munyeza was absent from Wednesday’s PAC meeting that was held at the State House.
Munyeza has also refused to comment on the attacks he has made against Government.
Narrating his background, Munyeza said he arrived in then Salisbury then in 1977 to finish his primary school in Highfields because in Nyanga the war had become very fierce and our school had been temporarily closed.
“We later moved to Old Marimba Park soon after independence. My dad operated grocery shops in Magaba and Matapi in Mbare.
“When I was in the rural areas all I ever wanted to be was to become a bus driver. I was intrigued by the fact that the bus driver took people where they wanted to go. I guess I have been driving a different bus as a pastor and as an entrepreneur. I have done my bit so far in taking people in my sphere of influence where they must go.”
Munyeza also opened up on his arrest on treason charges in 2008 when Robert Mugabe was in power.
“It was at the height of the diabolic price controls during another season of madness of our bad governance. Then I was the CEO of African Sun and I ordered that our hotels start charging in foreign currency since it was no longer sustainable to accept the bearer cheques/notes.
“I was then arrested for trying to sabotage the economy of which charge was muted as treasonous. The whole case fell apart before it could take off. The amazing thing was that four months later the same government dollarized, I was just ahead of them.”
Despite the tribulations he suffered under Mugabe, Munyeza maintains in no uncertain terms that the government of President Mnangagwa has been more brutal to citizens than the previous one under Mugabe.
“I’m saying this in my personal capacity and not as a PAC member. Having said that I must say that the previous dispensation was better than the current one.
“In 2 years they have managed to kill, close hospitals, destroy wealth, destroy livelihoods and take corruption to a record in an unprecedented manner. They have also demonstrated a dearth of leadership and incapacity and incompetence to take us forward.
“Basically we are staring at a disaster of untold proportions in the months to come.
“My view is that there is no need to come up with any more new policies, we have enough. What is left is to implement the ones that have been on the table, whilst at the same time evaluate why the ones that have been implemented have not worked.
“That requires capacity, competence and political will which we currently don’t have.”
Munyeza pushed back at statements attributed to Presidential spokesperson George Charamba who avvered that Munyeza had run his businesses to the ground and was not a good businessperson.
“… my businesses have not collapsed. I have since moved my portfolio to renewable energies, cloud computing, entrepreneurship incubation, e-commerce platforms and residual tourism interests.
“I guess the perception being driven by my adversaries is due to my closure of the franchised restaurants which we closed two years ago due to our inability to remit franchise fees because of foreign currency shortages through our banking systems. My businesses are now continental,” he said.
Munyeza aalso argued that he was not angling for political office, but will support any government of the day with open criticism.
- Content by Spotlight-Zimbabwe.
- Additional reporting by Zimbabwe Voice.
