President appoints State Security minister

Blessings Chidakwa, Harare Bureau

PRESIDENT Mnangagwa has made three senior appointments, headlined by the reassignment of Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in the Office of the President and Cabinet Lovemore Matuke, to be Minister of State for National Security.

Further, the President appointed Ms Rossy Mpofu to be the Special Advisor on Disability Issues in the Office of the President and Cabinet while Mr Raymord Machingura was appointed Executive Director for the Presidential and National Scholarships Department in the Office of the President and Cabinet.

In three separate statements yesterday, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Martin Rushwaya, said all the three appointments were with immediate effect.

“In terms of Section 104 Subsection (1) as read with Section 225 of the Constitution, His Excellency the President, Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has appointed Honourable Lovemore Matuke, Senator, as the Minister of State for National Security with immediate effect,” he said.

When the President announced his new ministers and deputies after the harmonised elections held in August last year, Minister Matuke was appointed Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in the Office of the President and Cabinet.

The new Special Advisor on Disability Issues in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Ms Mpofu, takes over from the late Cde Joshua Teke Malinga who died in September last year and was declared a national hero.

In 2013, Ms Mpofu was elected as Member of Parliament for Matabeleland South as a woman’s proportional representative.

This came after Zimbabwe allocated 60 seats to women in line with the 2013 national Constitution. The seats were based on a party’s share of votes in the province.

At last year’s Zanu-PF National People’s Conference held in Gweru, Ms Mpofu was appointed into the revolutionary party’s Politburo.

She replaced Cde Malinga as the party’s Secretary for People with Disabilities.

Mr Machingura, who is the new Executive Director for the Presidential and National Scholarships Department in the Office of the President and Cabinet, is a former Chipinge Central legislator.

In the 2018 to 2023 Cabinet, he served as Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development.