In the meantime, it has also emerged that Mnangagwa and his Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) have also not met for a while. The president’s spokesperson, George Charamba, confirmed at the weekend that the PAC had not met for some time.
Commenting on the reported discord in the PAC, he would only say that some of his boss’s advisers held strong opinions “which they were entitled to”.
“People have different levels … there is a plenary where we all meet and then there are thematic committees.
“If you look at the terms of reference (of the PAC), you will see that it was never meant to be a monthly affair,” Charamba said.
Respected cleric and businessman Shingi Munyeza is among those who have in the past expressed strong opinions on the way Mnangagwa’s government is going about its business — with one of his recent videos setting tongues wagging after he slammed the authorities’ shambolic handling of the doctors’ strike.
In a scathing attack on the government’s failure to deal with the health crisis sparked by the lengthy strike by doctors, Munyeza said authorities were out of touch with reality.
Another one of Mnangagwa’s advisors, Janah Ncube Musimwa, has also expressed her disquiet over the savaging of rights and opposition groups by police, in barbaric scenes which have cast doubts on the gov- ernment’s commitment to respecting human rights in the country.
In September, Mnangagwa ripped into some of his advisors and angrily asked them to resign if they were not happy with him and his government’s response to the country’s myriad political and economic challenges.
This followed an explosive meeting in which he accused some of them of leaking confidential information.