Former Environment and Tourism deputy minister Annastancia Ndlovu has denied claims that she was also sexually abused as a minor by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in the Midlands.
Ndlovu who now works as the director for Economic Affairs at the ruling Zanu PF party headquarters was responding to claims made by Australian-based Zimbabwean philanthropist Susan Mutami who also claims she was raped by Mnangagwa when she was only 15.
Mutami who has made a police report in Australia against Mnangagwa dragged Ndlovu into her revelations and said Mnangagwa “used to sleep with Annastancia Ndovu, the late Melody Dziva when they were minors too.
“I knew Annastancia before she even became a child parliamentarian. It’s a clique of older men who abuse young vulnerable women in society under the pretext of providing assistance,” Mutami claimed in her Twitter Space attended by over 13 000 people.
Dziva who set a record as the youngest Zanu PF legislator at 28 after the 2013 elections died in 2020.
Ndlovu has however fired back in an interview with The NewsHawks and denied being raped by Mnangagwa.
“To start with, I was never a child parliamentarian as she alleges. I joined Zanu PF while at Midlands State University when I was 19 years old, which means I was already an adult. I became an MP at 27. So her (Mutami) reports are utter nonsense. She must also let Dziva rest in peace,” Ndlovu said.
“We will not get our attention diverted by agents of the country’s detractors. Their attacks give us more inspiration to stay focused. We keep our eyes on the ball. I know President Mnangagwa as a great and principled leader, father, teacher and a strict disciplinarian.”
Ndlovu admitted visiting Mnangagwa’s Precabe Farm in Sherwood, Kwekwe where Mutami says the abuses took place but insisted “I only went there when there were Zanu PF party programmes.”
Although Ndlovu was fired from Zanu PF alongside other ministers after the military coup that brought Mnangagwa to power in November 2017 she was brought back into the party on the 26th of October 2018, barely a year after being expelled.
She insists her alleged relationship with Mnangagwa is not the reason she was brought back into the fold.
“Am I the only one who was re-admitted?”
“We are working strongly behind President Mnangagwa under his stewardship, as we say ‘nyika inovakwa nevene vayo’ (the country is built by its owners) and we don’t want sideshows.
“Mutami must find other ways of seeking Australian citizenship. I have never met her and so how does she know me? Where did she see me when I was a minor?” Ndlovu told The NewsHawks.
The government has so far refused to give a comprehensive rebuttal of the accusations with only Presidential spokesman George Charamba calling the allegations ‘rumours.’
Not only has Mutami said she was raped by Mnangagwa, she also claims his confidante and former State Security Minister Owen ‘Mudha’ Ncube also raped her during the occasions he was sent to take her home after every every rape.
Mutami also admitted to having an affair with the late Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo and that she has a child with him.
She alleged that Mnangagwa and Moyo, plotted against each other several times over her.
Moyo is the one who announced the military coup that ousted late former President Robert Mugabe in November 2017 on the state broadcaster ZBC.