Malawi govt denies sheltering Zimbabwe’s Jonathan Moyo

Malawi government says it has not given political asylum to former powerful Zimbabwean cabinet minister, Jonathan Moyo, who is wanted back home to answer a slew of allegations relating to corruption.

Moyo has been launching brickbats at President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government ever since he fled into self-imposed exile, following the fall of former leader Robert Mugabe in November last year.

Minister of Information and Communications Technology Nicholas Dausi has dismissed as “fake”  reports that Moyo is in Malawi.

“He is not here in Malawi [and] there has been no granting of political asylum,” Dausi said.

Moyo appeared on BBC’s HARDtalk with a pre-recorded interview  on Thursday and has since used social media to condemn last November’s military coup in Harare which saw President Mnangagwa taking over from Mugabe.

Moyo has been disparaging the government of Mnangagwa as illegitimate.

Other reports say that the Zimbabwean government has written the Kenyan government to send Moyo back to Zimbabwe because it believes the former minister is in that country.

Moyo also served as Minister of Information during Mugabe’s era.

Mugabe was toppled by the military in November last year after he sacked his then vice-president, Mnangagwa – in a move that insiders said at the time was meant to clear the path for the nonagenarian’s wife Grace to succeed him.  Mnangagwa was later installed as president.

The whereabouts of a number of powerful former ministers in Mugabe’s government have been the subject of much speculation, with some suggesting that they had in fact been detained by the military.

Moyo is said to have been the brains behind the Generation 40 faction within the ruling Zanu PF party, which was rabidly opposed to Mnangagwa succeeding Mugabe.

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