PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has turned to last year’s losing presidential election candidates to assist with ways to have sanctions imposed by Western powers lifted.
Mnangagwa blames Zimbabwe’s economic woes on the 18-year-old embargo ostensibly targeted at individuals accused of human rights abuses and electoral fraud, among other alleged offences.
Late last month, Mnangagwa called for protest marches supported by Sadc to demand the removal of the sanctions but the event was largely ignored by ordinary citizens.
Speaking to journalists after a clean-up campaign at Fife Avenue Shopping Centre in Harare Friday, Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) made up of mainly fringe parties and Mnangagwa’s Zanu PF chairperson, Justice Selo Nare, said the platform members will have a retreat in Nyanga to find ways to approach and engage the West so sanctions could be lifted.
“On Monday and Tuesday, we (POLAD members) have a workshop and one of the things we are going to discuss is Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zidera).
“We have been able to formulate some committees to have this running. We are now on the second leg, where we will be dealing with issues that pertain to governance, one of the areas that we will deal with is that of the economy,” said Justice Nare.
“With the advice of other groups that will come in, we should be able to cover a lot of ground. We will be going to Troutbeck in order to look at the outlay of things that we have missed out but the area we are going to be looking at is that of the Zidera and be able to interrogate it and find out how we can approach the people who have imposed sanctions on us and perfect the whole thing.”
POLAD has been ignored by main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.
Ironically, the US slapped State Security Minister, Owen Ncube with sanctions on the same day Mnangagwa was leading the march against the measures.
