MDC lawmaker takes aim at Mnangagwa

Since Zimbabwe’s military coup in November 2017, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Zanu-PF has taken the country to new and unprecedented depths of collapse, capture and coercion. That’s the view of Tendai Biti who was one of six opposition party officials who were detained outside their headquarters on Friday. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, they were granted bail after being charged with ‘criminal nuisance’ and breaching regulations to curb the Covid-19 virus. In a Daily Maverick analysis, Biti warns that Zimbabwe has become ‘a comatose, tin-pot republic dominated by massive economic mismanagement’. ‘Unemployment is now at 95%, and inflation is over 700%, the world’s second-highest rate after Venezuela. Billions have been spent outside the budget leading to perennial huge budget deficits that have forced the Central Bank to print money to cover the gap. As the economy implodes, Mnangagwa and his lot are presiding over the most corrupt and extractive period since Zimbabwe’s independence 40 years ago. Billions of dollars are siphoned off from the state, in vehicles and companies linked to Mnangagwa, his family and business associates.’

Full Daily Maverick report