(ANALYSIS) While President Emmerson Mnangagwa is spending millions of dollars travelling around the world preaching that Zimbabwe is a civilian state, his own ministers are declaring that it is instead under brutal military rule.

This week, the message was made louder by Mnangagwa’s complete silence and failure to reverse the proclamations made by two sitting ministers, plus the recent ones made by the president’s own special advisor, Chris Mutsvangwa.

This week alone, two ministers declared that soldiers will have the last say in the running of affairs. To add salt to injury, one of these is the minister in charge of investor-confidence, the Ministry Of Finance, Terrence Mukupe who boldly declared that soldiers will obstinately disregard the nation’s laws and have the final say in August this year.

The Information minister, Simon Khaya-Moyo made the situation worse by issuing a dry statement in which he said Mukupe’s proclamation to his knowledge so far existed only in a newspaper article. This was so despite the clear full blown video which remained on the minister’s Facebook portal since Monday.

To add more salt to injury to date, nothing has been done to Mukupe whose holding of the office continues to destroy Zimbabwe’s reputation as a business friendly nation.

So what risk assessment message will investors get now, let alone Zimbabwe’s insurance industry the key pusher of prices? (The industry is driven by risk assessment and so far a single incident of security disorder for instance in December, has seen prices shooting up.)