By Paul Nyathi|In what state media calls an attempt by government to clear the air on how President Emmerson Mnangagwa will handle the report of the Kgalema Motlanthe Commission of inquiry into circumstances leading to the death of six people in Harare on the 1st of August, presidential spokesperson George Charamba has instead made the confusion worse by attempting to play both sides of the debate though insisting that his boss is under no obligation to tell anyone the outcome of the report.

In an interview with the media, Charamba, who is also the Deputy Chief Secretary (Presidential Communications), indicated that there is no law in the country that may be used to force Mnangagwa to share the report with members of the public.

According to him there is also nothing to stop the President from making the report public if he so decides.

Charamba, however, also indicated that Mnangagwa assured the nation that he will share the report way before even before the commissioners were appointed which is an indication that he may just decide to take that decision.

“Zimbabweans must cool it and take it easy. There is no need for excitement. Let us avoid the feat of crossing the river when we are still at the summit of a hill,” said Mr Charamba.

“I sit in several meetings involving emissaries of foreign governments and, more particularly, involving the President and the UN Secretary- General. In all those meetings, the President made an undertaking that both processes and outcomes of the Commission will be an open affair. That was well before Commissioners had even been identified, certainly well before the Commission had been sworn in.

“He does not need any modicum of motivation by twimbos to do the right thing. It’s a decision which he took a long time ago well before the Commission was constituted. That decision and commitment does not trash processes and formalities of receiving and digesting the findings of the Commission. That was the gist of my intervention, all of which was conveyed in simple, comprehensible English.

“The current furore over the issue is doubly needless in that it misreads a simple communication from Government. Secondly, it elides time and processes.”

The Commission of Inquiry was appointed by President Mnangagwa in terms of the Commissions of Inquiry Act to investigate the August 1 post-election violence that resulted in the death of the six people and destruction of property worth millions of dollars.