BY BLESSED MHLANGA

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has continued to execute his official duties, has declared that he is still on his three-week leave and the man in charge remains his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga.

Mnangagwa, who was accompanied by Chiwenga for a tour of a computer, laptop and tablet assembling plant at the TelOne Msasa factory, said despite the visit, he was still on leave.

“This has been an eye-opening event for me. I am on leave and this man Dr (Misheck) Sibanda is the one who persuaded me to come. I didn’t want to come, but I thought maybe I will be given a laptop, I then agreed to come,” he said.

Debate is raging in the country on the fact that Mnangagwa has continued to execute some of his official duties while on leave after he convened a Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting, met Chinese Foreign minister Wang Yi, flew to Maputo for the inauguration of Mozambican President Filipe Nyuse and toured the TelOne plant.

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In a legal opinion, lawyer Thabani Mpofu said it was illegal for Mnangagwa to act in that manner.

“It is not open to the President, during the period in which an acting President is in office, to exercise on a random bases, the already delegated functions of his office. Executive authority cannot, at any level, be shared once delegated. Constitutional authority cannot thereafter be exercised once delegated,” Mpofu argued.

Turning to the factory which employs 30 people and has a capacity to produce 50 000 gadgets per year, Mnangagwa said the project would enable Zimbabwe to join the international highway.

“Jokes aside, this is the way to go. ICT is the way to go. We need to modernise our economy. We need to catch up with the rest of the world,” he said.

“To do so, we don’t need to invent the wheel anymore. We need to access technology from those countries which are willing to engage and co-operate with us and China is one of such countries.”

Jeremiah Munembe, who is leading the project, said they had invested close to US$1 million to come up with the production line of Infinity brand of desktop computers, laptops and tablets.