GENESIS 3 v 9-11 (NIV), “But the Lord God called the man, where are you? He answered: I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” Paidamoyo Muzulu This is the first time in the Bible when there was miscommunication between God and man. Man (Adam) may have deliberately misheard and answered in a defensive manner — giving a reason before he was asked to give one. Probably the conversation would have taken a different direction if Adam had answered directly the question he was asked. For argument sake, he may have answered: “I’m under the big tree close to the west end of the stream.” I guess God would have asked a follow-up question. Let us look at it from another angle, could it be possible Adam misheard the question? Probably, but he could have asked God to repeat himself — May you come again Lord. However, it is very probable that Adam heard the question correctly and chose to pre-empt God from asking further questions. This is a plausible explanation. All this long-forgotten Sunday school teaching was brought back by two events this week from the Emmerson Mnangagwa-led administration (I try really hard not to call it a regime because of the connotations the word carries). This week had unprecedented two clarifications from government on policy positions. Government officials claimed they were quoted out of context or some sections of their audience deliberately misinterpreted texts from the administration. In the first instance, the Mnangagwa administration was accused of slyly reintroducing the much-maligned Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act’s clause that says 51% of a designated entity should be owned by an indigenous person or persons. The matter arose out of the gazetted section 36 of the Finance (No 2) Act of 2020 that read: “The minister responsible for the Indigenisation Act, may, in consultation with the ministers responsible for Mines and Finance prescribe a mineral, the extraction of which would be subject to 51% shareholding by a designated entity.” Veritas, a legal and parliamentary monitoring think-tank, correctly analysed the text and concluded the administration had, through the backdoor, reintroduced the 51% local ownership clause in the indigenisation law. Exposed and with nowhere to hide, the administration conceded that it had backtracked on the scrapping of the 51% indigenisation clause in the mining sector. In a joint statement, the ministers responsible said: “It has come to government notice that the amendment to the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act contained in the Finance (No 2) Act of 2020 (section 36) may have caused some misconception to some investors and other stakeholders in the mining sector … “To enhance certainty in relation to investments in the mining sector, and consistent with government policy, this section will be deleted.” Before the dust had settled, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube put his foot in his mouth for the second time in a week. While speaking to Zimbabwe Television Network, a Zimpapers-owned television station, he