Mnangagwa speaks on Motlanthe commission report

The Motlanthe Commission Report will be made public since the interviews were held in public, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said.

He was addressing Zimbabwe's Ambassadors and Charge d'Affaires who were in the country for a week long workshop.

"The Motlanthe Commission Report will be published in full. This was made clear by His Excellency when he met Zimbabwe's Ambassadors abroad. He said the hearings were done in public so the report will be shared with the public." The Ministry of Information publicity and media services said in a statement. "He has so far received the summary and not the whole Report."

Recently there was nationwide outcry when Presidential spokesperson Mr George Charamba said President Mnangagwa in his capacity as the Head of State and Government is the sole recipient of the report by the Commission of Inquiry into the August 1 post-election violence that left six people dead and destroyed property worth millions of dollars.

"There is nothing at law that compels the President to release the report to the public or not to release it to the public," said Mr Charamba. "The discretion is his. Where he has a bit of a limit is in respect of how the Commission conducts its hearings in terms of the law.

"He is required by the Act to spell out that the Commission must conduct its hearings in camera otherwise the presumption of the law is that it's through a public hearing and as you notice, the President in the interest of openness, of transparency and to ensure that the Commission itself operates in a way that shows integrity, he decided to make the hearings public, which is why they were televised."