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PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe on Friday swore in Vice Presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko alongside seven ministers and one deputy minister with the appointees pledging to serve the nation and successfully implement government programmes.

The ministers sworn in included the Minister of Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Former Political Detainees and Restrictees, Christopher Mutsvangwa, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Priscah Mupfumira, Information Communication Technology and Courier Services Minister Supa Mandiwanzira, Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Christopher Mushohwe, Energy and Power Development Minister Samuel Undenge, Minister of State for Mashonaland East Province, Joel Biggie Matiza, Minister of State for Manicaland Province, Mandi Chimene and Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development, Tsitsi Muzenda. Deputy Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Cde Monica Mutsvangwa failed to attend the swearing in ceremony.

The new vice presidents and ministers filled vacancies left by fired former Vice President Joice Mujuru and the late VP John Landa Nkomo and eight ministers who were sacked for plotting to topple President Mugabe. The ceremony capped a tumultuous period in the life of the ruling Zanu-PF party and put closure to an intense period of reorganisation and refocusing of the vanguard movement.

Although reports yesterday indicated that at least nine more ministers, their deputies, permanent secretaries and ministry directors face the boot as part of government’s realignment process aimed at ridding the public service of rogue characters linked to the plot to topple the President, the bulk of the work has been done with the purging of the masterminds of the dastardly plot.

Cde Mugabe revealed the full extent of the scheming and plotting by former VP Mujuru and her cabal at the recently held Zanu-PF 6th national People’s Congress in Harare, laying bare their shenanigans which included plans to eliminate him to pave way for her ascendancy to the helm of the party and country.

To that extent Mujuru’s position had become totally untenable and the honourable thing for her to do was to resign but she hung on in the vain hope of deceiving the President into believing her feeble defence. In that vein, she opened herself to the humiliation of being fired unceremoniously and besmirching her liberation struggle credentials.

Following her failure to resign, President Mugabe was left with no choice but to fire her and her group to cleanse the party and government of undesirable elements and bad apples. We hold no brief for Mujuru and her fired ministers and deputy ministers but believe the President acted in the national interest and we fully support his bold move. Political parties are voluntary organisations with set down rules and regulations governing their operations and once cadres flout them, the party has the right to discipline them.

Resorting to skullduggery and other nefarious deeds to seize power is an affront to the founding values and ethos of Zanu-PF and it has now become clear that the Mujuru camp was so impatient to get rid of the President they had essentially made themselves enemies of the State.

Now that the dust has settled with the swearing in of the Vice Presidents, ministers and deputy ministers, the nation expects the new team to deliver on the party’s electoral promises and implement the government’s economic blueprint — the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset). The farming season is upon us and inputs need to be availed to farmers so that they increase their yields to feed the nation.

It is time to put shoulders to the wheel and get the country moving forward in unison. We implore the new team to hit the ground running and implement government programmes expeditiously. There is no time for celebratory parties because the people of Zimbabwe expect the new government to deliver.

President Mugabe has placed enormous faith in the new appointees and they should not disappoint him. The nation simply needs to move forward.