Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South) – In another blow to the Command Agriculture programme and its political face Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, allegedly using it to cement his succession chances, fellow Vice President Mphoko has expressed reservations about its nature as a driver of the economy.
In an interview with a state media publication this week Mphoko disparaged the use of a planned economy, the type of which is Command Agriculture, as a driver of the economy saying its origins in the former Soviet Union revealed a dark side.
“I have trained in the Soviet Union and I know what a planned economy is, but I am saying and we must be very careful not to distort our programmes”
“Because if you give a headline on a particular subject or a title to a book stick to the title, don’t distort it.”, he said.
Mphoko’s words will definitely add to the large build-up of negativity that has slowly wrapped itself around the Command programme in the advent of concerted attacks from Prof Jonathan Moyo.
In the factional battle to succeed President Mugabe, Mphoko’s, words will also likely rupture open another division of discontent in the party which is struggling to deal with the prospect of its first new leader in post-independance Zimbabwe as Mugabe, 93, ages more.
Speaking to the media VP Mphoko also added, strangely, that investors did not care about policy discord in Government as they were only driven by self- interest.
“In Zimbabwe there is everything here; you tell them not to invest but they want milk, they want fish they want gold, they want platinum they want all the minerals that we have here.
“Whether it’s agriculture or what the ministers say, those people are governed by their interests.”
Mphoko’s strange words that investors don’t care about policy discord a free in stark contrast to analysts diagnoses of the Zimbabwe economy.
Many have stated that the government’s inability to be principled in standing by its stated policies and constant flip-flopping is damaging the chances of Foreign Direct Investment coming into the country whose GDP is a comic pittance as compared to its neighbours.
Turning to the scourge of factionalism that has gripped the party VP Mphoko spoke strongly against it in Zanu-PF.
“Factionalism will not help anybody, instead it will destroy you. You see what happens is that you cannot anoint yourself; you can’t do that. You have to be anointed not by someone.
“Go to the Bible and look at how King Solomon was appointed. David was very sick, he was very frail and one of his sons, Adonijah, slaughtered over 50 beasts and anointed himself, assisted by Joab, who was a general in the army.
“Joab and Adonijah were working together. In the meanwhile the reality happened, and David installed Solomon and those who had anointed themselves failed completely. Those are lessons you must learn.
“You must learn what also happened to others during the Mzilikazi era. People decided to install Nkulumane before they had established that Mzilikazi was dead and as a result of that, it failed”, he said.
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