It is now nearly two years since Mnangagwa
launched his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” campaign. He was cocksure this
was going to open the floodgates on new foreign and local investments. That has
not happened, and many would say “Zimbabwe is open for business!” is dead in
the water. The regime has not given up and is making a desperate attempt to
revive the campaign.
President Mnangagwa is visiting Japan
next week for the Tokyo International Conference on African
Development (TICAD) “a major engagement set to unlock mutually beneficial
opportunities between Harare and Tokyo,” The Sunday Mail reported.
Zimbabwe needs “international help”
during its reform process which Japan is willing to provide; Mr Kenichi
Kasahara, Japanese embassy’s counsellor to Zimbabwe, told The Sunday Mail.
“The topmost point is that the
President himself, President Mnangagwa, is going to Japan and he will meet Prime
Minister (Shinzo) Abe. We are actually arranging a bilateral meeting to be held
on the sidelines of the summit,” explained Kasahara.
Of all the countries, Japan knows
that Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and
murderous thugs. Japanese investors have shied away from doing business in the
country because the know no honest businessman or woman would ever want to do
business with thugs.
Mnangagwa is hoping that a floodgate
of Japanese investors will follow his visit to Japan; everyone knows he is a
drowning man clutching straws!
The people of Zimbabwe have known
these last 39 years that Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by incompetent,
corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thugs. Powerless to remove the regime from
office, the nation has tried work with the dictatorship and get on with their
lives as best as they could. This has allowed the Zanu PF inspired mismanagement,
corruption and lawlessness to grow and spread to the deadly cancers they are
today!
In 2016 then President Robert Mugabe
admitted that Zimbabwe was being “swindled” out of a staging US$15 billion in
lost diamond revenue alone. We know the swindling had continued because his
Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament in 2017 that government
was getting 1/6 of the expected revenue from the diamond industry. By the time
he was booted out of office in November 2017, he had not arrested even one diamond
swindler nor recover one swindled dollar.
When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe
following the November 2017 military coup, he promised “zero tolerance on corruption”.
It was just one of the many promises he made but failed to keep. It is now
nearly two years since the coup and Mnangagwa is yet to arrest his first
diamond swindler and recover his first swindled dollar!
No nation on earth can survive much
less thrive given the extend of the economic haemorrhaging in Zimbabwe. For a
country with whose GDP is a mere US$10 billion, losing US$ 15 billion through
corruption is the equivalent of bleeding from the jugular artery! No wonder the
Zimbabwe economy is in a comatose state!
As much as Zimbabwe needs help to
revive its comatose economy it is clear the country needs to deal with the criminal
waste of human and material resources that landed the nation into the economic
mess in the first place. After 39 years of pretending we could work with the
dictatorship; it is insane to do so for one more day.
Zimbabwe must now bite the bullet and
demand an end to corruption, mismanagement and lawlessness which are only
possible if the people’s democratic freedoms and rights are restored. We must
bite the bullet and demand an end to bad governance and the Zanu PF
dictatorship.
Yes, Zimbabwe needs “international
help” in the form of generous injection of foreign aid and investment to revive
the economy but what good will that do if the criminal waste of resources through
corruption is allowed to continue. Zimbabwe needs international help to end bad
governance, the jugular artery haemorrhage; as long as Zimbabwe remains a
pariah state nothing of substance can ever be accomplished!
As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah
state Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” is dead his trip to Japan
will do nothing to revive the mantra or the economy!
Zimbabwe needs political reform more than it needs economic reforms, says Dale Mckinley.
ReplyDeleteRobert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies spearheaded the armed struggle to end white colonial rule but before the people had a chance to cast their first vote in a free, fair and credible election; Mugabe turned the AK47 on the people. Zanu PF told the nation in no uncertain terms that if the party lost the 1980 elections the civil war would continue. All who said the party was bluffing were silenced by the sheer barbarism of the Gukurahundi massacre!
For the last 39 years the nation has been cowed into accepting the de facto Zanu PF one-party dictatorship as something they could not change and so must live with as best as we can. But the extend of the economic rot has shown that this is simply unsustainable. If we are serious about reviving the Zimbabwe economy we must bite the bullet and end the Zanu PF dictatorship, the root cause of the economic meltdown.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thugs anyone who says the country can have meaningful economic recovery and still remain a pariah state is insane! Zimbabweans have gone down this disastrous route for the last 39 years and the country has sunk deeper and deeper into the abyss! Enough is enough!
Many Zimbabweans support these demos and believe they are fighting for change. Little do they know that MDC leaders are using them to force Zanu PF to share with Chamisa and company the spoils of the rigged elections. The National Transition Authority MDC leaders are calling for will not implement even one reform just as the 2008 GNU failed to. The NTA will allow Zanu PF to remain in power till 2023 and the party will rig these elections too.
ReplyDeleteThe people should be demanding that Zanu PF steps down so we can appoint a interim administration of competent individual who will implement the reforms. The NTA will block to appointment of the interim body. It would be better to stay home and have absolutely nothing with these MDC demos that to support them and forfeit the chance to bring about real change!