The country’s Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Martin Rushwaya, announced on 15 October 2024 that Shava had swapped roles with Professor Amon Murwira, who was the higher education minister from November 2017, when Mnangagwa ousted the late long-time autocratic ruler Robert Mugabe in a coup.
Questions continue over Shava’s suitability to serve in public office after he was involved in a car scheme corruption scandal in the late 1980s when he was a government minister. A commission of inquiry Mugabe set up at the time concluded that Shava had behaved like a car dealer while displaying gross abuse of a minister’s position, powers and privileges by buying vehicles at very low prices using his government position and reselling them at a profit, The Zimbabwe Mail reported on 10 February 2021.
Shava was prosecuted for corruption and resigned as minister, but Mugabe pardoned him. On 14 February 2021, Zimbabwe’s investigative news platform, The NewsHawks, reported that, in the years after Zimbabwe’s independence, Shava agitated for ruthless measures – including summary public executions of Mugabe’s perceived opponents. The publication said records in parliament captured in Hansard and several books, including Stuart Doran’s Kingdom, Power, Glory: Mugabe, Zanu and the Quest for Supremacy, showed that Shava demanded extrajudicial killings in parliament.
Recycling dead wood?
More than 40 years after first joining the government, he is now the minister of higher education. Mnangagwa seems to be recycling dead wood, say some critics.
In an interview with University World News, Tony Reeler, a senior researcher and former director at Zimbabwe’s Research and Advocacy Unit, said that, since coming to power, Mnangagwa has been making ministerial changes that add no value, and the latest is no exception. He said the latest changes seem to be inspired more by Zanu-PF’s succession politics than by coming up with the right policies.
Mnangagwa is currently serving his second and last term which expires in 2028 in line with Zimbabwe’s Constitution, but his loyalists have been urging him to change the supreme law to extend his rule up to 2030.
This has created divisions in Zimbabwe’s governing party, amid claims of a power struggle between the president and his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga, a former general pivotal in Mugabe’s ousting and a leading potential successor to Mnangagwa.
“Shava’s appointment is a bit strange. ED [Mnangagwa] keeps making these instant changes to his cabinet left right and centre. All indications in Zimbabwe are that changing posts make no difference,” Reeler said. “I would think it has more to do with succession problems in Zanu-PF; consolidation of power.”
Appointment a “tragedy”
Reeler said that, since the late 1980s, there has not been any allegation of corruption against Shava.
Dr Takavafira Zhou, a prominent Zimbabwean academic and education advocate, told University World News that it is a tragedy that Shava has been appointed minister of higher and tertiary education when he has no “educational taxonomy”.
“The honest truth is that the minister will be operating on unfamiliar terrain. He can do better if he depends largely on advice from the permanent secretary [for higher and tertiary education, innovation, science and technology development], Professor [Fanuel] Tagwira. Under normal circumstances, a minister must add traction to the ministry, and Fredrick Shava has very little to offer to the ministry he will be presiding over,” Zhou said.
Students most important
Takunda Chakawonda, secretary general of the Zimbabwe National Students Union chapter at the University of Zimbabwe, said that Shava’s litmus test is whether he champions the “agenda of students”.
“As long as our academic journeys are filled with uncertainty and pitfalls that are money related, as long as academic liberty is not respected, as long as students face the risk of deferring or dropping out, as long as education is not accessible, they could even appoint a priest with a clean record but that still wouldn’t be enough,” he said.
“These are the real issues on the ground that students need real solutions to. To us, anyone who is appointed to lead the students and does not have this agenda fails even before they begin,” Chakawonda said.
A university professor who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “The appointment of Shava leaves a lot to be desired because nothing is known about his experience or knowledge about the higher education sector. It seems to be a case of shifting chairs, with no intention to add value to the sector.”
Post published in: Featured