Harare – A heartbreaking video has emerged of Zimbabwe’s former information minister Jonathan Moyo singing a funeral tribute to his daughter, 20-year-old Zanele, who died in South Africa earlier this month.

Moyo, the man behind Zimbabwe’s tough press laws, charmed many former critics this time last year with a song he wrote and performed for another daughter’s wedding.

But in this impromptu rendition of Surely Goodness and Mercy, Moyo battled to control his emotions over the loss of a child he called his “angel daughter”.

Moyo’s Kenyan wife Beatrice comforted him as he broke down at the end of a song he started so strongly. The couple had five daughters. Zanele, who was studying at UCT, was buried in Harare on Friday.

Moyo, who is now minister of higher education, flew to South Africa last week with President Robert Mugabe’s nephew Phillip Chiyangwa when news broke that Zanele’s body had been found in the flat in which she was staying.

The Moyo family was unhappy with the investigation in South Africa and had a second post-mortem conducted before the burial.

Mugabe has said the Zimbabwe government would pursue the matter. Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko has also demanded a “thorough investigation”, the official Herald newspaper reported on Tuesday.

News of Zanele’s death shook many back home in Zimbabwe, leading even those who’ve been fiercely opposed to the government’s tight control over the press to share in the minister’s sadness.

Well-known Zimbabwean columnist @JeraZW, in a post carried by the HerZimbabwe blog, wrote: “Only those with no offspring of their own see this as a moment for profane celebration.

“The death of Zanele Moyo is not some sort of blunt instrument with which to bludgeon those we blame for our misery,” he added.

During his time as information minister, Moyo made forays into the music industry, raising the profile of local artists with his Pax Afro project and a requirement that 75% of music played on radio in Zimbabwe be locally-produced