THE United Nations (UN) Monday announced plans to disburse US$4.1 million support to help Zimbabwe tackle Covid-19, reported New Zimbabwe.
The funds will be used to procure personal protective equipment such as gloves, masks, sanitisers, cleaning materials and gowns for frontline staff in the fight against Covid-19 across the country.
“Due to the infectious nature of Covid-19, it is critical that our frontline health workers are protected and feel safe to provide the best care for patients,” said UN Development Programme Zimbabwe representative, Georges van Montfort.
“We are making all efforts for speedy delivery of the equipment.”
Yeah but how much of that equipment will go to the frontline staff in hospitals and clinics used by the ordinary Zimbabweans and how much will end up at St Anne Hospital and other hospitals for the ruling elite? There is overwhelming evidence to show how Zanu PF greed, corruption and blundering incompetence has made the corona virus situation in Zimbabwe a catastrophe of Biblical proportion.
This Zanu PF regime has failed to provide something as basic as clean running water at quarantine centres, hospitals and clinics across the nation and yet the few hospitals for the ruling elite everything one can ever imagine!
Indeed, VP Chiwenga has been touring hospitals kitted in the top of range PPE when most of the health workers will ever get are face masks to last a month at most!
There is also overwhelming evidence to show that UN officials have turned a blind eye to Zanu PF’s greed, corruption and blunders.
Indeed, many donors have stopped helping Zimbabwe because of the corruption and waste by the Zanu PF government. The question that must be asked is, why has the UN continued to prop up this Zanu PF regime at the expense of the long-suffering masses of Zimbabwe?
The people of Zimbabwe recognise that they have a serious problem with this corrupt, incompetent and illegitimate, everyone who is anyone acknowledged that Mnangagwa rigged the July 2018 elections, Zanu PF dictatorship. The problem of bad governance has come to the fore during these difficult days of corona virus pandemic, Zanu PF’s blundering incompetence have made things worse.
Why is the UN pretending everything is fine in Zimbabwe and Zanu PF is the most competent government ever? The UN has served Zanu PF well but served the ordinary Zimbabweans badly!
Zimbabwe’s Rio Energy Ltd., a unit of RioZim Ltd., will build a 2,100 megawatt thermal power plant with China Gezhouba Group Corp in northern Zimbabwe at a projected cost of $3 billion, Rio Energy said Monday.
ReplyDelete“CGGC will develop the project and assist with the fund raising,” Caleb Dengu, chairman of Rio Energy Ltd said last week. The power plant at Sengwa will be constructed in four phases of about 700 megawatts each, bringing total capacity to 2,800 megawatts.
“We have coal reserves to support a 10,000 megawatt plant at Sengwa,” Dengu said.
A 250 kilometer (155-mile) pipeline will carry water from Lake Kariba to Sengwa. The pipeline, and a 420 kilovolt-ampere power line, will be built by PowerChina, said Dengu. The first phase of the project will cost about $1.2 billion, he added.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has given a formal expression of interest in the project and is negotiating with Sinosure, also known as the China Export and Credit Insurance Corp, to cover country risk insurance costs, Dengu told Bloomberg.
Zimbabwe generates and imports about 1,300 megawatts of electricity, short of its 2,200 megawatt demand. Daily power outages have hampered industrial capacity for almost two decades.
This has been long overdue!
Zimbabwe will fail to meet its ambitious target of collecting 40 000 samples for Covid-19 testing because of the delayed of personal protective equipment (PPE), health minister Obadiah Moyo has said.
ReplyDeleteThe Zimbabwean government had announced that it would test 40 000 samples by the end of April but by Tuesday, had tested just over 5 000 samples.
Moyo said the PPEs had since been delivered and going forward they were targeting 2 000 samples per day.
This is just a feeble excuse. Government receive all manner of PPE from the own of Alibaba two weeks ago complete with part of the test kits. The balance of the test kits arrived a few days later.
Zanu PF has made a dog’s breakfast of the corona virus outbreak and, typical of the regime, it is now trying to hide the truth from the people of Zimbabwe and the world. This is not doing the nation any favours because without the correct information it means the nation is under estimating the seriousness of the outbreak, many people who have the virus but do not know that are out there spreading it to others.
Whilst China was secretive how many people were infected and died the corona virus, they is no denying the Chinese Communist Party did a great job of stamping out the virus. Zanu PF is equally secretive but have done very little to end the virus. Indeed, Zanu PF’s blundering incompetence is aiding and abetting the spread of the virus! Make no mistake about it, we are in serious trouble!
Seventy-seven high profile corruption cases, with a potential prejudice of US$500 million, are being investigated by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) as it deepens its fight against the vice.
ReplyDeleteHow many times have heard that one before and it all came to naught. Things will be the same this time and meanwhile the looting continues!
MDC-T Secretary General Mao Nyikadzino has announced that Thokozani Khupe has been fired from the MDC-T with immediate effect.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking at Heart and Soul TV on Tuesday Nyikadzino said by associating herself with the Supreme Court ruling Khupe had voluntarily left the MDC-T.
What a circus. The real tragedy is all this confusion in MDC is happening at the time when the nation's survival is at stake because of the covid-19, itself made worse by Zanu PF's blundering incompetence!
The root cause of Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis is the bad governance.
ReplyDeleteAfter 40 years of providing an ambulance service at the bottom of the cliff and the situation get worse and worse year in year out we cannot afford to bury out heads and pretend the ambulance service is solving the problem. We need to ask the obvious question: why is a country that was the breadbasket of the region now so poor it cannot even feed its own people?
Corona virus has spared no one the world over but there is no denying it is going to hit those nations with weak economies and corrupt and incompetent government hardest of all. How well this nation is going to reduce the suffering and deaths from corona virus going forward and how quickly the country will emerge out of the economic depression will depend on one thing - how quickly we replace this blundering, corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship with a competent and accountable government.
There are those who have elected to provide an ambulance service at the bottom of Zimbabwe's corrupt and wasteful political system that has condemned so many to abject poverty and hopelessness. Great, but at times like this is really is not enough!
There are those who have never lifted a finger and said nothing about the human tragedy that has befallen this nation these last 40 years. Even with this corona virus threatening to cause heartbreaking human suffering and deaths they will say nothing and will not lift a finger. They are blissfully unaware that the economic and political turmoil of the last 40 years has not spared them and the coming tragic events triggered by corona virus will not spare them either.
"I won's talk about sanctions, corruption, bad governance, etc.!" was a foolish notion from the word go because we all have a duty to ourselves and others ensure the country is government by competent men and women for the good of us all and not just a few ruling elite! And at times like this when the nation is facing its greatest existential threat of our time, it is not the time to chicken away from our duty to end the curse of bad governance in favour of only providing an ambulance service to the victims or worse still, do nothing!
South Africa has announced that pupils might be going back to school in May. The neighboring country's Basic Education Department Director-General, Mathanzima Mweli told journalists at a media briefing that schooling might resume on May 6, depending on the decision of Education Minister, Angie Motshekga.
ReplyDeleteIt is no secret that SA imposed the lockdown too early without taking adequate steps to ensure physical distancing will be practical and effective. Given so many people live in poverty and live from hand to mouth a lockdown period of more than a few weeks was always out of the question. And now the country is relaxing the lockdown conditions when the number of corona virus cases is rising with gathering pace!
Physical distancing is near impossible in a school setting. As soon as there are reports of a few corona virus cases in the school, the authorities will have no choice but to close them again.
No doubt Mnangagwa will too be looking to ease Zimbabwe’s lockdown; he is imposed the lockdown with 5 or so confirmed corona virus cases in the country – how stupid was that!
At least SA has ramped up its testing for corona virus and so its decisions going forward will be based on facts. Zimbabwe promised to do 30 000 test by the end of April and yet with two day left, has not done 8 000!
The blundering incompetence with which African governments have handled the corona virus outbreak has turned this tragic situation into a catastrophe of Biblical proportion!