Foreign Affairs Minister, Sibusiso Moyo on Friday told journalists that he will not divorce his wife, Justice Loice Matanda Moyo because she was appointed the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC).
ZACC is expected to be an independent organisation but Matanda Moyo’s appointment to the role by President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been condemned as nepotism since her husband serves in Mnangagwa’s cabinet.
Minister Moyo is a retired Lieutenant-General and a close ally of Mnangagwa. He was the one who announced the military coup that overthrew longtime President Robert Mugabe in November 2017.
Minister Moyo, who retired from the army soon after Mugabe’s overthrow, insisted that his wife is independent. He said:
She is independent. She has been a judge before and she has held decisions in her own right as a professional when I am in the Executive.
That has not even affected her way of dealings, and there are no ways I can divorce her.
Minister Moyo asserted that the so-called New Dispensation has provided freedoms to citizens and that there are no human rights violations in the country. He said:
To the contrary, the government of President Mnangagwa, since the new dispensation provided freedoms, which has never been experienced in Zimbabwe before.
Let me assure you that the policy of the government is strictly to ensure that there are no human rights violations at all and if there are any, they are investigated, and they must be reported and then they must be dealt with.
Minister Moyo made the remarks in spite of the killing of 7 protestors in Harare on August 1, with a commission of inquiry established to investigate the circumstances recommending that the responsible soldiers should be identified and punished. Nothing has been done to date.
Furthermore, in January this year, more than a dozen protestors were shot and killed with hundreds more wounded and yet no one has been held to account for the atrocity.