Mugabe last paid war vets' children fees in July 2013 - no coincidence. By Patrick Guramatunhu

Government has doled out $6,4 million for school fees for war veterans' children.

"We also have arrears dating back to the third term of 2013, so we are hoping that these will also be paid off," said retired Brigadier-General Walter Tapfumaneyi who is the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry for War Vets Welfare Services.

Dating back to July 2013; why am I not surprised!

The regime has not been paying its bills. It is no secret that the national economy is in total meltdown and government has been struggling to pay the civil servant's wages let alone pay for other essentials like books for schools, drugs for hospitals, school fees for war vets' children, war vets' pension, etc.

So Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa has managed to find $6,4 million to pay the war vets' children's school fees; excellent! Who will not be paid in time this time? Usually it is either the teachers of the nurses!

The war vets will have to wait a while for their pension!

What is shocking here is that the war vets are still holding on to President Mugabe's promise of mass prosperity and refuse to see the reality of growing poverty. Worse still, they do not see that the mass poverty is man-made! Of course this is a man-made crisis; President Mugabe himself has admitted the regime has squandered $ 15 billion in Marange diamonds.

President Mugabe and his Zanu PF cabal are corrupt and incompetent and if we are serious about about ending the economic meltdown and the grinding poverty the nation is facing right now then it is obvious the regime must go.

Ever since President Mugabe paid war vets the $50 000 pay-off in 1998 many of the war vets have taken it upon themselves to deny the people their right to free and fair election and have shamelessly helped President Mugabe impose his no-regime-change ethos. President Mugabe used the war vets in implementing his vote rigging scheme in the July 2013 elections and so he paid the war vets' pension, school fees, etc. to keep them happen. As soon as the elections were over he dumped them just as he has dumped everyone else.

The 1998 Z$ 50 000 pay-off to war vets was unplanned but necessary to alleviate the economic hardship; it was a tacit acknowledgment by the regime that its mass prosperity policies were not working. The very fact that the war vets are back asking for more assistance shows the economic situation was not improved but instead has got worse than ever. It is high time both the regime and the war vets accepted Zanu PF has failed to deliver mass prosperity.

Ever since 1998 President Mugabe has sought to alleviate the economic suffering of the war vets alone and yet the economic collapse has affected the rest of the population just badly. The people of Zimbabwe have a meaningful say in the governance of the country and therefore demand the restoration of every Zimbabwean's right to free and fair elections as a birth right and as the only basis for good governance and a way out of this economic mess.