Obert Mpofu chickens out, Jonathan Moyo off the hook

HIGHER and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo might be off the hook on charges of abusing social media to settle political scores with foes in Zanu-PF after party secretary for finance and Umguza legislator Obert Mpofu said "the case is no longer on the agenda".

Mpofu recently told a Zanu-PF Provincial Co-ordinating Committee (PCC) meeting held in Lupane, Matabeleland North last month that a date will be set to discuss charges against Moyo, who is also the Tsholotsho North legislator.

The Macro-Economic planning minister was responding to a resolution by the province calling for the expulsion of national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere over a litany of allegations ranging from setting parallel structures to depose the President, fanning factionalism and undermining the authority of First Lady, Grace Mugabe.

The reports say Moyo faced charges of airing party issues on social media and working against government programmes particularly command agriculture through his strong views on the communist style system, eliciting an angry response from the Tsholotsho North legislator.

But on Tuesday, Mpofu, however, told Southern Eye that Zanu-PF Matabeleland North no longer had the appetite to go after Moyo.

"It is not on our agenda. We don't have it on the agenda," Mpofu said, refusing to comment further on the matter on Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Moyo has been prolific on Twitter criticising command agriculture, his opponents within Zanu-PF while also trying to clear his name in the case in which he is being accused by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission of siphoning over $400 000 from the Zimbabwe Manpower Development fund (Zimdef).

Moyo, in his angry response last month, described Mpofu as the biblical "Judas Iscariot", after the latter indicated that the Tsholotsho North MP would also be censured soon for backing his Mt Darwin South colleague, Kasukuwere.

"From the published remarks on the social media platforms of The Chronicle and The Herald, it is clear that Obert Mpofu abused the PCC (provincial co-ordinating committee), as he so often does, in his mistaken belief that just because he has a big body, he should throw his weight around and usurp the PCC for his personal purposes and his grossly selfish politics that the people of Matabeleland North have come to loathe for its depravity," Moyo said in his response.

"Obert Mpofu believes he is the Zanu-PF PCC in Matabeleland North and that the PCC in Matabeleland North is Obert Mpofu. This rot of his has gone on for too long and too far.

"Obert Mpofu's allegation that I have attacked command agriculture on social media and that I should be censured for that shows beyond any doubt that he has become dangerously opportunistic in his quest to impress some successionist interests in the hope of securing a position in their treacherous ranks.

"I, for one, will not allow Obert Mpofu to impersonate King Lobengula, pretending to be Matabeleland North's centre of power. Zanu-PF has one centre of power across the country and that centre of power is President [Robert] Mugabe, my appointing authority to whom I report directly, not via Obert Mpofu or anyone else for that matter. Obert Mpofu is a colleague in the politburo, and not my boss. If he does not respect this fact, he must prepare for the consequences."