Prof Jonathan Moyo's unedited statement o Mliswa allegations

The following is an unedited statement issued by Jonathan Moyo last night in reaction to allegations made against him by Temba Mliswa.

"The allegations you are putting to me sound like they are coming from quarters that have been caught with their fingers in the till and they imagine that they can fool the public in the hope of covering up their corruption by seeking shelter under the laager of factionalism.

It is important to understand that just because some individuals in Zanu-PF bask in the folly of factionalism by declaring that they belong to a faction as has been done by our party's chairman for Mashonaland West province, does not mean that those whom these individuals see as not belonging to their faction or whom they don't want to belong to their faction actually belong to another rival faction. No.

There's no logic in that primitive presumption.

Factionalists have no business using their factionalism to define Zanu-PF members or leaders.

For the record, lest there's a serious person out there who does not know, I am a member of Zanu-PF and a cadre of the party and not of any faction.

More specifically, I am a full member of the Zanu-PF politburo in my own right and not as anybody's factional extension nor as an expression of anybody's factional ambitions.

I am fully aware that I am part of Zanu-PF's national leadership with a mandate to serve all members of the party under President Mugabe.

There's no member of Zanu-PF whose card has a factional identity.

My role as part of the national leadership of Zanu-PF is to serve the whole party by advancing its policies and interests led by President Mugabe and not advancing the interests of a section of the party or advancing the schemes or ambitions of individual party leaders.

I therefore do not belong to any individual leading any faction in the party.

The notion of belonging to a faction is repugnant that it flies against the face of having gone to school where the purpose was to be grounded in rationality over emotion.   

I am in Cabinet appointed by President Mugabe and therefore part of the leadership in government as minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services with a policy and constitutional responsibility to serve all the media and the entire information sector and broadcasting services.

My remit is to serve all not some of the media and I am determined and committed to discharging my responsibility without fear or favour in light of the constitutional oath I took upon assumption of my duties.

In this connection, and under President Mugabe's direction, I have been working very hard with my colleagues in the ministry to depolarise the media and to depoliticise and depersonalise public discourse to promote the development of a professional and ethical mainstream media that is conscious of Zimbabwe's national, security and economic interests as are defined in our new Constitution which also enshrines the freedom of the media.

While a lot more still needs to be done in this regard, I am sure media practitioners would agree that important steps have been taken in what is indeed going to be a long journey with bumps along the way.

We now have laid a foundation for a mainstream media which is not divided along the simplistic and divisive factional lines or binaries of public versus private media or state versus independent media.

Only someone whose hands have been stuck in the till would be unaware of these very public truths.

When all has been said and done, the bottomline is that Zimbabweans don't care about factions, what they want to see addressed as a matter of urgency is corruption, corruption, corruption.

As minister responsible for the media, I am happy that the entire media in Zimbabwe has without exception prioritised the fight against corruption.

All thinking people should be commending the media and not condemning it for doing a great job.

In doing this job, the media has not been divided by any political or professional barrier.

While people can say what they want and daydream as much as they want, the idea that anyone can seek to pocket US$165 million only and only for introducing any investor to high ranking figures in our society is simply corrupt and totally unacceptable.  

Nobody should get away with such criminality simply on silly grounds that they belong or do not belong to this or that useless Zanu-PF faction.

Money should be made from real work and not from hoping in and out of helicopters expecting to pocket US$165 million under the cover or presumed protection of a political faction.

That is not business by any stretch of the imagination, it is pure racketeering and racketeering is corruption which should be punishable at law without fear or favour".