Tuesday 24 May 2016

By demanding cash doctors are joining Govt in callously fleecing PSMAS member of last cent. By Patrick Guramatunhu


“Sooner or later the people will always get the government they deserve,” this is a universal truth as true, irrefutable and common sense as the second law of thermodynamic which simply put, states that “Heat will not flow from a colder body to a hotter body without the application of work (the imposition of order) to the colder body.”

 

After 36 years there is no doubt that Zimbabwe deserves this incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime. Whilst it is true that this Zanu PF regime has been ruthlessly oppressive as it was incompetent and corrupt but by being incompetent it offered many, many opportunities for the people to end its tyrannical rule if the people themselves had, in turn, turned out to be equally incompetent.

 

Zimbabwe deserves this corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF regime and it was none other than the professionals who have let the nation down. Take the case of the case of the professional in the health sector for example; here is a typical case of how professionals have let the whole nation down.

 

36 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has taken its heavy toll of the whole nation from the army of the 90% unemployed at the bottom of the economic ladder to the employed but poorly paid professionals like engineers and doctors right up to the ruling elite in government itself – the incompetent, corrupt and oppressive government we all do not want but have by default!

 

It turns out that the government has instructed its revenue collecting arm Zimra to demand full tax payment from doctors and others in the medical profession based on their billed earnings even if the doctors themselves have not been paid by patient’s medical aid society.

 

“The law requires doctors to render services to members of the public,” explained deputy health and child care minister Dr Adrian Musiiwa.

 

“When a patient produces a medical aid card, they’re expected to treat them and be paid by medical aid societies’ within a period of six months. If they don’t accept that they’re breaking the law.”

 

The Deputy Minister said government would force the health insurers to pay the doctors although in practice it has never done so and has instead continued to harass the doctors to pay their tax regardless. Some bills have not been paid for three years!

 

According to Dr Shhingai Bopoto the secretary general of Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZIMA), representing private doctors, hospitals and other medical service providers, its members are owed more than $220 million by various health insurance firms, with Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS), the government run society, being responsible for half the amount.

 

Government has been collecting the membership contribution without failure the reason why PSMAS has failed to pay the service providers is two-fold:

  1. Government has not always paid PSMAS the collected membership subscriptions.
     
  2. Corruption in PSMAS is rampant, as is the case with many other public owned and/or controlled institution; the society’s revenue has been soaked up in paying top managers scandalous exorbitant salaries and allowances, typically CEO Cuthbert Dube was paid $500 000 a month. Considering the majority of the civil servant, the members are paid $600 per month or less, it is little wonder the society had no money left to pay the service providers.
     

What is of greatest interest here is the response of ZIMA members to the political and economic reality affecting the nation. Of course they are aware of the basic facts of the decades of misrule by this Zanu PF regime that has produced the army of unemployed and the millions now living in abject poverty. If they had done nothing to protest the misrule because they had no peg on which hang their protest then being asked to pay tax from earnings the regime itself was withholding from them was the peg.

 

ZIMA members, in their collective wisdom, have decided not to protest but have continued to pay their taxes from their other sources of income. They are rich and can afford to pay tax even on income they do not have! Their protests would have helped rein in the insanity of the corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF regime and thus save the unemployed army, etc. from more suffering. The ZIMA members like so many others of the country’s many professions have done nothing to end the Zanu PF’s misrule because the really do not care about the suffering of others.

 

Indeed to underline their callous indifference to the suffering of others, ZIMA members have asked PSMAS members to pay up front for their medical needs although the ZIMA members know these civil servants will continue to have their membership subscriptions docked off their pay. ZIMA members know that we will all pay our last cent for our health needs even if that means paying twice over as is the case here.

 

In every society it is the professionals who play the leading role in shaping the destiny of the nation. In Zimbabwe intelligentsia who should be leading from the front in ending this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship have, at best, stayed out of politics or, at worst, worked in cahoots with the regime to fleece every last cent out of povo.

7 comments:

  1. The truth is the economic meltdown is serious and the people are concerned because they are at the coal face of it all.


    The reason why #thisflag campaign has had so many followers is because Pastor Mawarire is saying things about the economic meltdown that all these people are seeing every day in their separate lives. When the Pastor talks of Zanu PF has failed and the need for real change he is speaking for millions of ordinary Zimbabweans out there and it is this key that is worrying President Mugabe and all his apologists.

    Regime change is coming my friend, it is long overdue!

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  2. My quarrel with MDC leaders like MP Eddie Cross is they had the golden opportunity to end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the GNU and they f*&# up big time allowing Zanu PF to rig the 2013 elections and get back into power. Ever since the MP and his MDC friends has been telling us how much we are suffering under Zanu PF misrule, as if we cannot see it for ourselves when they should be using their position in parliament to push for democratic reforms.
    We figured it out for ourselves that the bond notes are Z$ by the back door and the 2008 nightmare id back; we do not need you to tell us things we already know. If you lot are not going to do something useful like implement the democratic reforms then shut up!

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  3. Yes if the private doctors and private hospitals refuse to pay their tax until PSMAS paid them the outstanding bills that would put the government under pressure to sort out the its own finances and to end the corruption in PSMAS. It is a shame that the doctors are electing to squeeze the helpless civil servants who are powerless to stop government docking their PSMAS subscriptions, powerless to make sure PSMAS get the money and powerless to stop the chefs in PSMAS squandering it on luxuries.

    The private doctors have thus decided they want their pound of flesh from the civil servants too and so they are insisting they must be paid up front by the impoverished civil servants!

    What a nation of vultures! No wonder the country is in a mess!

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    Replies
    1. It is very sad that we have become a nation of vulture all queuing to feed on the misery of the weakest in society!


      You will be surprised how many of these dirty vulture call themselves Christians and pillars of society!

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  4. @ Hamma

    Having the majority of supporters counts for nothing if one can rig elections as Zanu PF does. Please go to this website to refresh your memory of what Zanu PF is capable of when it comes to rigging elections. https://www.enca.com/africa/viral-video-alludes-zim-vote-rigging.

    Regarding demons Zanu PF has unlimited sources of funds to pay for hired crowds. The party is spending $200 million on its one-miilion men march does the opposition have such money to match? So why take part in a contest you know you will never win?

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  5. @ Knowledge Chipango

    So you expected the office cleaner to understand the intricacies of how government and PSMAS bosses are working together to loot their medical aid contribution and to stand up to these thugs? However it is not unreasonable to expect a doctor to understand what is going on here and better still to expect the doctor to help restore justice and not to move in seeking to take advantage of the office cleaner!

    Society expect the doctors, engineers, etc. to lead the rest of the nation because having invested so much in their education these professionals, it is assumed, can see a lot further than those who did not have the same education. Sadly these doctors can clearly see no further than the tip of their big noses just like the rest of us.


    It is a historic fact that Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because the nation’s profes-sional elite have allowed Mugabe and his thugs dragged the whole nation into the gutter. Needless to say the whole nation has paid dearly for this including the professionals themselves. What is the point of being a first class lawyer, engineer, doctor, car mechanic, etc. have millions of potential customers when only a tiny minority can afford your first class services.

    With unemployment at 90% unemployed even doctors are sitting around twiddling their fingers with the sick and dying everywhere. They can demand cash up front all they want but in a nation sinking in abject poverty they will not get any cash!

    How ironic that someone with no common sense should be called knowledge!

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  6. Ken Yamamoto compared RBZ governor Mangudya, a professional in his own right, to a tortoise stuck on a fence post for allowing himself to be talked into introducing the bond notes.





    ”When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a tortoise balanced on top, that’s a fence post tortoise," he explained. "You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, he’s elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb arse put him up there to begin with.”






    Well it is clear Dr Mangudya is certainly not the only professional who the regime has forced to compromise themselves to the point they too are a tortoise stuck up a fence post. The decision by the doctors to force civil servants to pay cash is a stupid one in that they are clearly picking the civil servants because they are a soft target when they should be taking the regime head-on!






    It does not matter what these doctors say to try to justify their stupid decision, this is one stupid decision that is simply indefensible!





    No wonder Zimbabwe is a real mess, we have too many professionals who are just tortoises stuck up fence post! Their greed and short sightedness has allowed them to be bullied by the Zanu PF regime, they are now just willing tools in the tyrant's tool box!

    ReplyDelete