President Mnangagwa Reinstates Cellphone Ban At ZANU PF Politburo Meetings

Being that we cover tech and business, we rarely get to cover stories to do with politics. But when the President decided to ban cellphones at Politburo meetings our ears perk up and the instinct to report kicks in!

DailyNews reported that the people who attended the Politburo last week were searched at the entrance and instructed to leave their cellphones. Daily News political analysts believe that this has something to do with the rumoured factionalism that has once again gripped the ruling party.

Deja Vu

This is not the first time such a ban has been instated and back in 2017 under the leadership of former president Robert Mugabe, similar measures were taken to ensure party members wouldn’t leak information to the media.

Is social media to blame?

In this age of digital whistleblowing and grown men seemingly wanting to increase their social media influence, it is easy to see why the President took this step. Banning social media would spark a far bigger outrage so maybe this is meant to ban the people feeding social media and leaving social media and the rest of the public untouched.

One of my superiors was saying in this day and age, the President should be embracing technology but I don’t think I agree entirely. Yes, tech is great but just like everything else too much of anything can have some seriously dire consequences. I mean politburo meetings have never been held in the public eye and they are mainly concerned with issues to do with the party. I don’t see what is wrong with tightening security measures for something that has always been private to begin with.

Some companies have a no cell phone policy during meetings whilst others allow workers to use their cell phones to take notes. I think the issue of banning cellphones is neither here nor there and it just depends on whether there are any security risks attached to the use of phones. If yes, then they are likely to be banned. If no then they can be entertained. If members of the Parliament were the ones facing this ban, then there would be an issue but on this one; I don’t think it’s a big deal.

What do you think? Is this a big issue?