“The $1,744 billion allocated in the 2021 National Budget by Treasury to allow the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to conduct the delimitation exercise ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections, has been describe as grossly inadequate,” reported Zimeye.
“However, legislators (Parliament’s portfolio committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs) have called for more budgetary support for the exercise, which requires about $8,6 billion.”
This government has not implemented even one democratic reform since the rigged 2018 elections and there is nothing to suggest it has any intention of doing so in the future. With no reforms, the 2023 elections will marred by the same flaws, irregularities and illegalities noted in the 2018 elections and, before that, the 2013 elections. This is just another expensive but utterly meaningless rituals!
Last January the MP for Chiredzi South constituency revealed that the best performing schools in the grade 7, form 2, “O” and “A” level examination posted 3% pass rate and the great majority had 0%. Most rural schools had very similar results.
Zimbabwe’s education standards did not fall to this over one or two years; this has taken decades - a reflection of decades of under invest. And yet year after year parents have send their children to school knowing fully well the children will learn very little, as the school results showed!
The 2020 corona virus pandemic has disrupted education the world over, including Zimbabwe. Whilst the rest of the world has made a concerted effort to make sure students made up for lost time, our attempts to do the same have largely come to naught.
As soon as the schools and colleges reopened leaners found there were no teachers. The teachers went on strike; taking up from where they left off before the corona virus shut down. They are demanding a living wage and not the US$50 or so per month when the PDL is pegged at US$650.
This government is squandering $1.7 billion (US$ 17 million); the same again in 2022 and ten times that, at least, in 2023; preparing for the 2023 elections. This is just a criminal waste of money; we already know the elections will be rigged!
I would rather government pay the teachers a living wage than waste the money on yet another mockery elections.
The US$ 17 million allocated from the national budget is nothing compared to the billions of dollars Zanu PF squanders to bankroll its vote rigging juggernaut. The money is raised from all those benefiting from the wholesale looting of the country’s resources be they individuals, companies and nations, both local and foreign.
ReplyDeleteThe election ritual is to give Zanu PF the legitimacy. The whole election process is a farce. In the July 2018 elections, 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote, the whole voter registration and voting was deliberately chaotic ZEC did not even produce the voters’ roll for verification even to this day. When you going to rig the elections you do not want anyone to check and verify anything!
Even ZEC failed to produce all the V11 forms, the summary of the vote count at all polling station, in its affidavit submitted to the Constitutional Court. 10% of the V11 forms were missing and hence the reason ZEC had three different vote totals the commission could not reconcile.
It is a great tragedy that the MDC not only sold-out and failed to implement the reforms when the party had the opportunity to do so but has been participating in these flawed elections giving the process credibility and the results legitimacy. The MDC leaders know this as David Coltart readily admitted in his book.
Zanu PF has held this nation to ransom ever since the country’s independence and, for decades, we have paid dearly in treasure, lost opportunity and anguish, and the price has gone up considerable - we now paying with human lives too! We must end this madness, we owe it to ourselves and posterity.