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VP Phelekezela Mphoko

Herald Reporter
VICE President Phelekezela Mphoko has dismissed remarks by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Gutu on Saturday that he was poisoned in Gwanda in August at a Youth Interface Rally.

In statement he made when he was the Acting President after President Mugabe had gone to South Africa, VP Mphoko said: “Over the weekend, and apparently using the background of unproven, but persistent allegations and claims that the late national heroine Shuvai Mahofa was poisoned at the Zanu-PF People’s Conference in Victoria Falls in 2015, VP Mnangagwa told an emotionally charged memorial service for Cde Mahofa in Gutu that what happened to her in 2015 in Victoria Falls, is also what happened to him on August 12 in Gwanda.

“Contrary to his statement, his medical doctor, while briefing President Robert Mugabe in the presence of VP Mnangagwa, confirmed that Vice President Mnangagwa was not poisoned. At the Gweru Presidential Youth Interface Rally, President Mugabe revealed that, three days earlier, he had met with Mnangagwa’s medical doctor in the presence of Mnangagwa and that the doctor, who has been attending to Mnangagwa for 20 years, told the President that his long standing patient had not been food poisoned,” said VP Mphoko.

“It will be recalled that on the eve of the Midlands Presidential Youth Interface Rally held in Gweru on September 1, 2017, Vice President Mnangagwa issued a statement categorically stating that he did not eat any ice cream in Gwanda. This was after widespread false claims that he had been poisoned after allegedly eating ice cream from Gushungo Dairy. Vice President Mnangagwa’s Gutu claim that he was poisoned in Gwanda on August 12, 2017 is surprising in light of the public record on the matter,” he said.

The poison allegations, he said, were bent on destabilising the country.