Gift Mugano

Mugano criticised the attempt to silence him saying it was inconsistent with the government’s stated position on freedom of expression.

On 29 June 2020, Nzenza said she had accepted Mugano’s resignation, insisting that he was only a transitional chairman.^[2]

In an exclusive interview with Great Dyke Tv in July 2020, he revealed that he resigned from the chairmanship of the Ziscosteel board because of the interference of the government officials in his duties including Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube.

Mugano said he was under pressure over his comments on the auction system and the suspension of mobile money platforms in the public media which were perceived to be in conflict with government policy.

He said:

"I had many issues with the Ministry of Finance, the issue is with the Minister of Finance in particular. He saw my views on the recent policies of suspending mobile payment platforms and the auction system as very critical and political. So my then line Minister for Industry and Commerce Dr Sekai Nzenza said l should zip my mouth because l had said l will withdraw myself from the state enterprise. From where l sit, l didn’t see any value of that because l believe that policymaking is a cycle and whenever a policy is presented it has to go under public speaking for people to see whether it is ok, so you would hope that the policymaker will be able to listen to those views and then be able to improve the policies."

^[3]

Government

He worked as a Senior Advisor to the Government of Zimbabwe under the Adam Smith International Zimbabwe Project – a multi-million-dollar Market System Development/Making Markets work for the Poor (M4P) programme funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) which fell under the World Bank’s Business Enabling Environment Programme (BEEP). Under this programme, his work contributed to a number of pieces of legislative and non-legislative reforms which were aimed at improving the business environment for small and large enterprises in Zimbabwe.

Prior to this, he served the Government of Zimbabwe under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce for six years in various capacities. Gift Mugano also represented Zimbabwe at various forums on trade negotiations and investment missions abroad (Heads of State & Government Summits, Council of Ministers, Senior Officials of Trade & Technical Committees) at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels in Belgium, Switzerland, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Botswana, People’s Republic of China and South Korea. He has done consultancy for DFID, British Council, Parliament of Zimbabwe, NIR Sweden, GIZ and UNFPA.^[1]

Events

Mutapa Investment Fund

Another opinion says the Mutapa Investment Fund is a fiasco.

President Mnangagwa’s use of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures Act) to rename the Sovereign Wealth Fund to Mutapa Investment Fund and to transfer shareholding of 20 state-owned companies was done without the involvement of Parliament and therefore exposes the entities to looting.

The article lists comments from Tendai Biti, Nigel Chanakira, Tony Hawkins, Gift Mugano, Welshman Ncube and Victor Nyoni. They have criticized the move as:

• outside the President’s power’s’
• enabling the movement outside the country of foreign currency without oversight’ (allows money-laundering),
• based on misinformation that Zimbabwe has a budget surplus when public debt had increasing to $144 trillion’, “The inclusion of loss-making parastatals is just one more attempt to hide public finances from parliamentary scrutiny and pretend the national budget is in surplus when it is not,”
• usurping state assets and taking them from the state, because the government owns these parastatals and now Mutapa Investment Fund now owns them temporarily - particularly the government which does not have a clean record of transactions,
• government has never understood the role of a sovereign wealth fund - to use domestic surpluses from extractive industries like mining, which are depleting national wealth to diversify the economy. Away from dependence on a handful of mineral exports and tobacco. ^[4]

Academics

He is a visiting lecturer with the University of Zimbabwe’s Graduate School of Management and Namibia Business School. Gift Mugano is also a Research Associate with Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He previously taught at Bindura University of Science Education and Women's University in Africa and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Business School. ^[1]

References