Zimbabwe Situation

Is the jury out on Kasukuwere?

via Is the jury out on Kasukuwere? – DailyNews Live 8 APRIL 2014

Former Indigenisation, Youth and Empowerment minister — Savior Kasukuwere — is like a man who has just had a night dominated by black cats.

Hardly two weeks go by without his name being dragged into controversy traced back to the time when he was driving the indigenisation policy.

As it is, Kasukuwere is lurching from one allegation to another — although he remains steadfast in his defence which has a consistent line of a man who did not do anything outside his mandate.

Kasukuwere has been accused of misleading President Robert Mugabe on the Marange Zimunya Community Share Ownership Trust (MZCSOT) in which diamond firms mining in the area deny having agreed to contribute $10 million each to the Trust.

Mugabe was presented with a dummy cheque of the anticipated $50 million during a ceremony in 2012.

All the mining firms have flatly denied they agreed to pay $10 million each towards the MZCSOT.

But Kasukuwere defended his claims to Mugabe by producing “letters” sent to all the mining firms in Marange reminding them of their “obligations” towards the empowerment of the MZCSOT.

These letters have been dismissed as fake and couldn’t be traced, his successor Francis Nhema told Parliament last week.

“I have checked with all the files at the ministry, It seems I cannot locate them, I have even asked officials whether the letters are there,” Nhema told the committee on Indigenisation, Youth and Empowerment.

“The problem is that there is no reference, no date stamp to authenticate the letters, I have checked with many files, I don’t know if they are there. I tried to ask the officials, but no one knows about them.”

So if the letters do not exist, from where did they originate?

What was Kasukuwere’s role in those letters?

Why is Kasukuwere refusing to field questions from journalists on the latest damning allegations?

Did he mislead Mugabe?

These are the questions the embattled minister has to answer. So far he has been really unconvincing. There are many, particularly the youths, who see Kasukuwere as a symbol of failed promises judging by the way the Youth Fund was disbursed.

The minister has got to be reminded that if he is not careful, he will fall into quicksand.

And as it is, we ask, is the jury out on you, minister?

 

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