The Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD), composed of most of the 23 party leaders who contested the July 2018 presidential elections expect Nelson Chamisa and a few others, committees presented their reports to President Mnangagwa.
"I am extremely happy. It was very nice especially the one that dealt with engagement and the economy, it was very detailed and I think it's very useful,” President Mnangagwa told the journalists.
"The first one was the economic committee which hosted the economic forum last time which in my view did sterling work. It brought together the major stakeholders in our economy –industry, commerce, mining, agriculture, Consumer Council and labour were all represented. They submitted their report. There was the governance and the constitutional legislative committee chaired by Professor Lovemore Madhuku also presented their report which was broken into major two components – the process of the constitutional amendments and the content of the amendments," said Mnangagwa.
There is a parliamentary committee on the economy which would or should, if they were as competent as the POLAD committee, bring together the same stakeholders and ask the same searching questions. The parliamentary committee has the legal power to force the stakeholders to answer the questions, if necessary, but most important of all they will go on and formulate and pass the necessary laws to address whatever problems they pick up. POLAD committee has no such power and authority.
As much as Professor Madhuku would want to flatter himself that he and his POLAD friends are playing a useful role in stopping Mnangagwa corrupting the constitution and abrogating to himself more dictatorial powers. They are bolting the stable door long after the horse has bolted.
By blatantly rigging the July 2018 elections to garner a 2/3 Zanu PF parliamentary majority, Mnangagwa secured the power and authority to corrupt and amend the constitution as he pleased. By participating in the flawed and illegal elections, Madhuku and his fellow opposition candidates gave the process and the result some modicum of democratic credibility and legitimacy respectively.
If President Mnangagwa is saying that he finds the POLAD members more competent than the MPs and senators, then one has to look at why our electoral system has been such a total failure; instead of electing the cream in society it has ended up with scum!
Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because Zanu PF has created a de facto one-party dictatorship that stifled public debate and democratic competition. By rigging the elections the party has filled parliament and senate with individuals more attuned to follow the party’s diktat then act in the national interest.
There is better debate in a high school hall than in our parliament and it is no surprise that for the last four decades the nation has sunk deeper and deeper into this man-made economic mess and political paralysis.
The solution to our political and economic crisis is to restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections and thus end the dictatorship.
President Mnangagwa’s solution is to acknowledge there lack of quality MPs and so by-pass parliament by creating such super numeral bodies as the 24 member President Advisory Council (PAC) and POLAD. This will kill-off debate and democracy and thus make a bad situation even worse.
Given only Mnangagwa elects these PAC and POLAD members, they are accountable to no one else other than him makes them even more toothless poodles than the MPs they are replacing! Stop Zanu PF rigging the elections and we will have robust public debate, vibrant democratic competition and competent MPs guaranteed.
It is now nearly two and half years since Mnangagwa launched his Second Republic and its new dispensation and proclaimed to the world that "Zimbabwe was open for business!" On the ground nothing has changed, indeed, the economic meltdown is worse and so is the political repression. In short, there is little to show for the "sterling work" POLAD members are doing.
Those promoting such bodies as PAC and POLAD; i.e. President Mnangagwa, Professor Madhuku and his fellow POLAD opportunists, Zanu PF apologists etc.; are enemies of democratic accountability and good governance. They are, per se, enemies of the people!
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa now stands at 38 after 14 new cases were confirmed today.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers have increased by 14 from yesterday’s confirmed cases of 24, Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize has said in a statement.
Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for an urgent cabinet meeting to held on Sunday.
There is every possibility that covid-19 is spreading in Zimbabwe and it is going unnoticed because those in positions of power and authority have not taken the necessary steps to monitor the virus' spread. Those infected with the virus are treated like someone with a sprained ankle or some such none communicable illness.
Zimbabwe has known about covid-19 since December, over three months ago. Why is it that a nation of 16 million people has not yet to set up facilities to test suspected covid-19 patients and all deaths? The nightmare scenario is to discover the country has the virus outbreak when it is already spreading like wild fire.
Zimbabwe's health care services is all but dead and the last thing we want to rely on a service that cannot even do the simple things to now do the complex and near impossible things - with no staff, no equipment, no medicine, etc. We are in serious trouble!
Namibia has cancelled its Independence Day commemorations scheduled for 21 March as part of efforts to contain the spread of the deadly Coronavirus.
ReplyDeleteNamibia has so far recorded two cases.
Namibian President Hage Geingob said they were suspending flights going to and coming from Ethiopia, Germany and Qatar for 30 days.
The nightmare scenario is for a country to done nothing for weeks on end whilst the virus spread like wild fire! Zimbabwe is one prime candidate for such foolishness.
THE United States government is set to inject US$400 000 to fund Zimbabwe’s coronavirus preparedness.
ReplyDeleteUS Ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian Nichols confirmed the development on the sidelines of a graduation ceremony for the Zimbabwe chapter of the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) at the American Embassy in Westgate, Harare Friday.
Nichols confirmed the US$400 000 would be channelled through the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Health to help Zimbabwe prepare for the deadly virus, which is spreading across the world.
Thank you. One only hopes that the money will be used wisely.
In a country where the health service has all but completely collapsed; the corona virus will try and test this nation to the limit, the ultimate limit, to death.
What is so frightening here is that Zimbabwe is one of the least prepared nation for such a this corona virus. We should therefore expect to pay dearly for our failure to stop the rot that left the country in this economic and political mess.
@ Silungisani Ndlovu
ReplyDelete“Wilbert Mukori ...Why you always mentioned the word rigged elections once you talk about Zimbabweans Elections?...No elections are rigged in Zimbabwe Opposition Parties are clearly bitten by the Ruling ZANU-PF...MDC-ALLIANCE Party got learned people in its top Ranks who monitor elections...Why are they got robbed by ZANU-PF Old Guards and the Old TAXI Drivers...This is pure lies Mr Wilbert Mukori that ZANU-PF Rig Zimbabwe Elections...You mean the Lawyers like Biti, Sikhala, Chamisa and Welshman Ncube are stupid to be knocked by the TAXI Drivers in ZANU-PF...PAMBERI NE ZANU-PF...Zimbabwe Will Never Be A COLONY AGAIN…”
Well you are right on one count - “Lawyers like Biti, Sikhala, Chamisa and Welshman Ncube are stupid to be knocked by the TAXI Drivers in ZANU-PF!”
I have said is a thousand times and will say it again here and now that MDC leaders are breathtakingly corrupt, incompetent and they sold out big time in failing to implement the reforms and in participating in flawed and illegal elections. It is a great tragedy that many Zimbabweans have yet, even now with the benefit of hindsight, to open their eyes to the political reality that MDC leaders are now running with the hare but hunting with the hounds.
The colonial question was settled with Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 and ever since the big issue was honouring the promise of up holding the freedoms and rights of every Zimbabwean. Robert Mugabe and his cronies have been riding roughshod over the people denying them their freedoms, rights and human dignity all under the pretext that granting the people their freedoms, etc. will result in the country being a “COLONY AGAIN!”
An ancient saga was once asked what is it that makes us human. His answer was empathy. Or as Jesus Christ put it “love your neighbour as you love yourself!”
Empathy is the one quality that Robert Mugabe and his cronies clearly lacked because they have ill treated their fellow black citizens in much the same way if not worse than the whites ill-treated blacks. Please note, the whites have rarely if at all ill-treated a fellow white much less kith and kin the same way blacks have relished ill-treating a fellow black even kith and kin!
Indeed, Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs lack common sense - to you and me that is empathy in its most primeval stage. He who kills the goose that lays the golden egg has no common sense and that is exactly what these Zanu PF have been doing over and over again. They fought to end oppression only to be the next oppressors; where is the common sense in that!!
As for you, my friend, you have clearly been brain washed into believe Zanu PF dictatorship is necessary and have wallow in your ignorance like a pig in mud-bath. If you cannot see through the lie even with all the mountain of evidence of how the Zanu PF thugs have rob the nation blind then you are blind. All the attempts to get you to open your eyes have been wasted.
There is no one more blind than he who choose to close their eyes! You are clearly blissfully happy wallowing in s***t. Go ahead! Pamberi neZanu PF!
Silungisani Ndlovu
ReplyDeleteBy resisting peaceful democratic change Zanu PF is forcing the nation to use street protests or worse to push for change. If Mnangagwa thinks he is stopping change happening by using violence, he is wrong. He has postponed change happening yes but not stopped it. But most significant of all, in postponing it he is only forcing the pressure to build up to the overwhelming Tsunami that sweep all before it.
We do not want that happen to Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Gaddafi in Libya to happen here! Sadly this is the violent end game tyrants understand and it is the end game Mnangagwa is pushing for. Be rest assured that Mnangagwa and his cronies will be held to account for all the suffering, death and destruction the violent end will entail!
"POLAD is doing a sterling job!" said Mnangagwa. Yeah right!
ReplyDeleteMnangagwa allocated a staggering US$4.5 million to POLAD's re-engagement activities and the committee has just reported back and confirmed has hit a brick-wall. The western nations, the regime is desperate to woo, are demanding that there must first be meaningful political dialogue in Zimbabwe with all the stakeholders and not just POLAD members.
IMF, WB, AfDB and all the other financial institutions have just told the Zanu PF regime that they will not give the country a single dollar in financial assistance because the country’s reforms are ‘off-track’, the country has failed to stamp out corruption, etc.
The tragedy in Zimbabwe is that the nation is stuck with a regime that is simply refusing to see the writing on the wall - that Zimbabwe is in total economic meltdown because the country is a pariah state and, more significantly, that there must be change as the economic situation is unsustainable.
The price of having an economy in total meltdown in these days of coronavirus has just sky rocketed. Countries like South Korea have managed to contain the virus by throwing technical expertise and vast sums of money at the problem. Zimbabwe neither the technical expertise nor money to throw at the pandemic and will pay dearly for that in human suffering and deaths!
The primary purpose of the opposition parties is to hold the government of the day to democratic account. What Mnangagwa is doing with such bodies as POLAD is forcing the opposition to voice their criticism through this informal bodies such as POLAD and PAC.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe is in this economic and political mess precisely because for the last 40 years Zanu PF has stifled all meaningful public debate and democratic competition. To get out of the mess, we need to implement the democratic reforms to free up the media, have freedom of expression and association and have competent opposition parties proffering critical opinions of government policies and alternative solutions. We should be remove the gunge and not to be finding more and more sinister ways to corral everyone into submission and silence.
Mnangagwa is prepared to pay the POLAD and PAC members big bucks to buy their silent cooperation and use brute force to silence everyone else into submission. This is not getting the nation out of the mess but dragging us deeper and deeper into the abyss.
Why should Zanu PF reform when the party knows that MDC will participate in the elections regardless as long as Zanu PF allows the opposition to win a few gravy train seats in the urban areas!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteMDC failed to get even one reform implemented during the 2008 to 2013 GNU for the same reason they continue to participate in flawed and illegal elections - greed.
"Electoral reforms are beneficial to everyone not just the MDC," said Jacob Mafume.
We all know that but more significantly Zanu PF knows that MDC will never ever boycott rigged elections and bring about any meaningful reforms because greed has the better of the MDC's leaders!