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Tendai Mugabe, Harare Bureau

VICE President Constantino Chiwenga, who has been away for the past four months receiving medical treatment in China, has fully recovered and resumed his official duties yesterday, starting with the regular top-level Monday briefing.

The VP arrived in Harare during the early hours of Saturday and President Mnangagwa visited him at home later in the day and noted that the Vice-President was fit and raring to start work. 

“I am extremely relieved that my brother is back and is in good health,” the President said. 

VP Chiwenga yesterday attended the Monday briefing chaired by President Mnangagwa.

After the briefing, VP Chiwenga, who was in high spirits, told our Harare Bureau at his Munhumutapa Offices that the meeting was fantastic and had gone well.

“You know in Government we have our morning briefing every Monday. So we have had that and it went on very well with the President and the team that he works with. We reviewed what transpired in the past week and what needs to be done this week. Everything went on very well.” 

The VP also took the opportunity to show his love for farming and updated our Harare Bureau on activities at his farm.

He said the main reason why he joined the liberation struggle together with many Zimbabweans against the Ian Smith regime was to ensure that the country had enough food.

“In some of the fields the maize has germinated but I told them not to plant in all the fields because the rains are quite erratic and the dams are drying up,” said VP Chiwenga.

“Tobacco is also doing very well and planting is continuing. We received 22mm of rainfall at the farm this week, which fell in a very short space of time. The hectarage that has been planted for now is almost coming to 200 for maize and 60 hectares for tobacco and we are continuing with planting. The figures that I am giving you are for two or three days ago.” 

Earlier, Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet (Presidential Communications) Mr George Charamba had said the VP was chatty and had actively participated in all the discussions that took place during the morning briefing.

“The VP arrived at the Office at 8:45AM and we had our long Monday briefing,” said Mr Charamba.