PRESIDENT Emerson Mnangagwa yesterday fired Information deputy minister Energy Mutodi after a series of public clashes with Foreign Affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo left the administration embarrassed.
By Desmond Chingarande
The outspoken Mutodi last week publicly criticised Tanzanian President John Magufuli’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak in the east African country, prompting Moyo to publicly censure him. Mutodi then accused Moyo of behaving like a prime minister.
Moyo, however, had the last laugh, after Regis Chikowore, presidential communications secretary, last night released a statement that Mutodi had been fired with immediate effect.
“The Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda has announced the termination of employment by his Excellency the President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Dr Energy Mutodi as Deputy Minister of Government in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. The termination is with immediate effect, in terms of section 108(1a) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe,” Chikowore said.
Mutodi has courted controversy in his short political career, which saw him being elected as a member of the National Assembly for Goromonzi West on a Zanu PF ticket in the 2018 polls. He was wont to making bizarre statements on his Twitter handle, alleging that Moyo, a retired Lieutenant-General was behind a plot to kill him following their public spat.
Hours before he was fired, he tweeted that the three MDC Alliance youth leaders who were allegedly abducted by State security agents and later found dumped in Bindura last week were actually on a date gone wrong with “their lovers who are artisanal miners”.
“Details emerge MDC youths Joana Mamombe, Netsai Marova and Cecilia Chimbiri went out for a romantic night to Bindura with their lovers who are artisanal miners. They parked their car at a police station for safety, but tragedy struck when they demanded foreign currency for their services,”
he tweeted.
Last year, he called MDC activist Sekai Marashe a prostitute after she was abducted and brutally assaulted by suspected State security agents and Zanu PF militia in Kwekwe.
Posting a picture of Marashe with a swollen face, Mutodi tweeted: “No matter how democratic our government can be, we can never guarantee that drunkards and prostitutes stop fighting.”
Mutodi was seen as Mnangagwa’s blue-eyed boy after his picture with the then Vice-President at his Zvishavane home on the 2017 New Year’s eve holding a cup inscribed “I am the boss”, went viral.
