Supa Mandiwanzira resorts to bootlicking Mnangagwa

FORMER ICT minister and Nyanga South legislator Supa Mandiwanzira, who has fallen out of favour with the Zanu-PF hierarchy, was in overdrive Tuesday as he heaped praises on President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his cabinet in his contribution to a motion on the State of the Nation Address (SONA) early last month.

Throughout his contribution, Mandiwanzira gave Mnangagwa high scores on all sectors, depicting a booming economy at a time things worsened.

"The President Cde Dr. ED Mnangagwa spoke about an infrastructure that allows an investment to existing so the president is not just talking but he is demonstrating that we will not just talk. He mentioned in SONA that his investment is going in into the Hwange so that more thermal power is produced as we still have enough time to make use of our coal to generate the electricity that we require," Mandiwanzira, who is seeking to regain Mnangagwa's favour after being accused of playing the bhora musango game in the last general election, said.

Mandiwanzira earned himself more votes than his party leader in his constituency in the 2018 election and has since then been hounded by officials claiming he may have campaigned against his principal.

But there was no evidence of any element of betrayal as the former journalist went out of his way to please Mnangagwa in his speech.

"The government has been also promoting the use of solar energy and the massive, continued support that the government, His Excellency President has put in to make use of solar energy, Madam Speaker we need to make sure that there are resources being directed by the government to the industry towards the support domestic retail industry. I cannot understand, Madam speaker why are we allowing ourselves to lose on this? There is nothing complicated about installing solar power panels. There is nothing sophisticated because our young people leaving universities and colleges can do that job, so we must applaud the President and his ministers for the work being done," Mandiwanzira said.

"In the mining sector, let us make sure that we support our President to make sure that we achieve the US$12 billion economy by 2023 and making sure it's only not being shared by the big investments who are coming from outside the country."

"When we are on top of the world, in terms of resources and everybody is interested in pacts, when that resource is not exploited for three years,  that is okay because their money is sitting at the Reserve bank of Zimbabwe and is being used to sustain our economy and it can only be done now when we are attractive, so Madam Speaker, I am suggesting that as support His Excellency's vision, clarity as expressed in his SONA we must take advantage of our output, particularly tobacco if we are  farmers are able to produce 200 million kgs of tobacco."

He urged the government to engage in command farming of cash crops such as tobacco.

"Why can we not have command tobacco farming and include all those interested in this type of farming? So we have opportunities to support His Excellency's vision through farming, through financial institutions, and complaining about others but to take our own space as Zimbabweans," the legislator highlighted," he said.