Online Reporter
Wallace Ruzvidzo, Harare Bureau
PRESIDENT Mnangagwa yesterday swore in Deputy Ministers from the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development and the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development at State House in Harare, with both pledging to serve their respective portfolios with distinction.
Deputy Minister Fred Moyo will serve in the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development and Deputy Minister Kiven Mutimbanyoka will be in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development.
Speaking to the media after the swearing-in ceremony, Deputy Minister Moyo, who has served in the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development before, said he was elated to be back.
“I’m back . . . I’m happy to be back. I think maybe there was unfinished business, you never know, but let me go back and start again and see what we can achieve here,” he said.
The Deputy Minister, who is a mining engineer by profession and has vast experience in mining, explained the modalities that make the mining sector a low-hanging fruit in Zimbabwe’s economic landscape.
“It (mining) is a low-hanging fruit, but I think people also tend to underestimate the complexities of mining. So while it is a low-hanging fruit, there are certain things that mining demands that must be done procedurally in a certain way in order to achieve the desired results,” he said.
Deputy Minister Moyo said mining was an international business, especially for Zimbabwe, as its value chain included international players, be it in terms of equipment or buyers of minerals.
“We use equipment sourced internationally, we use skilled scientific formulas that are international, we trade the minerals internationally.
“If I give an example, if we have a mineral buyer who comes from the US, for example, who wants to come and buy a mineral from here, that’s a top executive from the US coming into Zimbabwe to come and negotiate to buy our commodity.
“If you deploy a half-baked marketer at MMCZ (Minerals Marketing Cooperation of Zimbabwe), you lose,” he said.
The Deputy Minister also touched on mining regulations in the country as well as the need for synergies between the ministries of Mines and small and medium enterprises.
“You need to say in Zimbabwe, our mining sector is regulated to use technology of this type, of this standard, so that the universities and colleges train, focused on certain practices and technologies.
“It looks like a small thing, but the miners don’t know who their regulator is, small ones. Small farmers, they know, small hospitalities, lodges they know, health sectors, small nursing houses they know, but miners (there is a) grey area. So I look forward to an exciting period here.”
On his part, Deputy Minister Mutimbanyoka began by expressing gratitude to President Mnangagwa for the recognition, saying it came as a surprise.
“I really want to thank His Excellency for this very opportunity to actually serve Zimbabwe, and I am going to deliver on the mandate as given by His Excellency.
“I am so thrilled, I am so thankful, and I really want to thank His Excellency for the confidence that he has actually shown in me and for appointing me to this auspicious position of being the Deputy Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprise Development,” he said.
“I have always known His Excellency as a rewarder of talent, a rewarder of hard work, and I would like to believe that I have been working very hard ever since I got into Parliament, and possibly that explains why His Excellency, in his wisdom, decided to actually appoint me today, and I am so thankful.”
Deputy Minister Mutimbanyoka then narrated how he had come from working in the retail sector to serving in the Second Republic.
“When I left school, I went into retail, and I worked for Food Lovers, the current Food Lovers Greendale, that’s doing so well.
“I worked for them for 10 years, I was the General Manager, and thereafter I resigned to start my own. I have since set up my own, that’s called FreshCo, and FreshCo is housed at Sam Levy’s Village,” he said.
