In 2012, the late Edward Chindori-Chininga
said in parliamentary report that no one, no one in the companies doing mining,
the local partner (whoever it happened to be) or anyone in position of
authority, knew the quality or quantity of diamonds, who was buying them, how
they were being shipped, out of Chiadzwa and Marange, etc. So, no one could say
with any confidence the true value of the diamonds coming out of Marange and
who was benefiting, etc.; everything was happening under a cloak of secrecy!
To mark his birthday in February 2016,
President Mugabe admitted that the country was “swindled” of US$ 15 billion in
diamond revenue. Up to date, nearly a year and half later, no one has yet been
arrested and not a single dollar of the vast fortune has been recovered. Not a farthing.
Now he tells us the looting has been wholesale.
Mugabe told thousands of youths
at Sakubva Stadium that he was bitter after he handed over the dummy cheque to
Zimunya-Marange Community Share Ownership Trust while promising them $50
million after he was informed that the then five mining companies had pledged
$10 million each.
"They had me walk here holding a big board inscribed with a cheque that they later refused to honour. You still have that grievance,” said President Mugabe.
The regime kicked out the “Ghanaians, Lebanese, Chinese and South Africans who were running companies in Chiadzwa so that we do our own mining,” years ago. And still the nation is not getting anything from all the hive of activities in Marange and Chiadzwa!
"They had me walk here holding a big board inscribed with a cheque that they later refused to honour. You still have that grievance,” said President Mugabe.
The regime kicked out the “Ghanaians, Lebanese, Chinese and South Africans who were running companies in Chiadzwa so that we do our own mining,” years ago. And still the nation is not getting anything from all the hive of activities in Marange and Chiadzwa!
"There was a
misunderstanding between government and them until government resolved to take
over the operations… once our operations improve we will fulfil that promise.
It is no secret that the regime
has been spending money as if money grows on trees buying party cars, buying
cars for traditional leaders, bankrolling its political activities, paying
Nikuv for unspecified work, etc., etc. This is simply unacceptable that the
wealth from the diamond bounty which should be benefiting all Zimbabweans is
lining the pockets of a few individuals and the rest used to deny the rest
their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free, fair and
credible elections.
The billions of dollars looted from
Marange and Chiadzwa diamonds gives Zanu PF an unfair political advantage
particularly since the money is being used to bankroll its undemocratic vote
rigging activities. There is no point in contesting next year’s elections until
democratic reforms are fully implemented and every dollar from Marange is
properly accounted for.
"I'm also bitter that a
grown man like me, I'm made to parade a board ($1.5 million cheque) which
doesn't mean anything," said President Mugabe.
How insulting; Zimbabweans are
today the poorest people in Africa, according to an AfrAsia Bank report, and
the people know billions of dollars in diamonds are being swindled out of the
country every month! The man presiding over this grand theft now pretends to be
bitter over $1.5 million cheque but has never lifted a finger to recover US $15
billion he himself admitted was “swindled”!
The day the country has regime
change; the nation must launch a thorough investigation into the going on in
Chiazwa and Marange with a view of establishing the truth extend of the
looting, recovering as much as possible of the looted wealth and most important
of all punishing all those involved in this treasonous act.
If anyone was capable of shedding rivers of crocodile tears then President Mugabe would have shed the Zambezi River of crocodile tears. He is “bitter” that the $1.5 million promised for community development did not materialise knowing fully well that is a drop in the ocean of the billions of dollars the nation has lost in Marange and Chiadzwa. He is the one presiding over the grand theft alright just as he is the principle beneficiary of all the looting and plunder.
ReplyDeleteLast year Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament that government was receiving revenue from less than one million carats of diamonds. He was expecting six times as much, the rest is not being declared!
Marange diamonds should have been the bounty blessing to finally set Zimbabwe on the road to prosperity. When the diamonds were first discovered in 2006, the then Minister of Mines, Obert Mpofu, boasted that the country will be able to finance all its development projects. Zimbabwe had an estimated US$ 800 billion worth of alluvial diamonds!
Today, 11 years later and with mining in Marange going on 24/7, the nation has very little to show for all the diamonds mined and shipped out of the country. The rats moved in and the looting that has been taking place is one of the worst in human history! With all this wealth pouring in it is inconceivable that President Mugabe and his cronies would ever contemplate giving up political power and with it the exclusive right to loot! No chance!
There is no doubt that President Mugabe has used some of the Marange looted wealth to bribe Tsvangirai and his MDC friends during the GNU. They were so happy and comfortable they made bonfires out of the reforms, just to be cocksure no one will ever raise the subject ever again.
Tsvangirai was the most senior GNU official who investigated the operation in Marange in 2012 and he gave his thumbs-up. A few weeks later, he was on the Ship Cruise, The Legend of the Sea, living it with one of his many courtesans. The trip costed a pretty penny and no prizes for guessing who bankrolled it all!
So, instead of the Marange diamonds being a blessing they have become the country’s curse!
This is typical, she does not listen to any one and shoot off answer a question she wanted asked and does not give the individual the chance to asked. She sat in Zanu PF for 34 years and never lifted a finger to stop all the corruption and murders. Indeed, she saw to it that she got her lion’s share of the looted wealth. We all know of her diamond concession in Marange – “Churu chaMai Mujuru!”
ReplyDeleteAll Mai Mujuru wants is to get back on the gravy train so she can reclaim her Churu and continue with the looting where she left off!
She and her party are in NERA because it is good for them to be seen as seeking democratic change. They are just paying lip service to democratic change. She has already made it clear that she will contest next year’s elections even thou not ever one reform has been implemented. She does not care that millions of ordinary Zimbabweans have been denied their right to free, fair and credible elections and they have suffered the indignity of being frog marched to attend rallies and then to vote for the party they hate. Indeed, she is busy mobilizing her own party thugs to frog march povo to attend her own rallies!
Supporting someone like Joice Mujuru, with all her proven track record as a corrupt, incompetent and unbelievably naïve individual, only serves to underline just how naïve and gullible Zimbabweans are! There is no chance of a healthy and functional democracy taking root in Zimbabwe, not with a naïve and gullible electorate.
Transform Zimbabwe leader, Jacob Ngarivhume, has threatened to mobilise opposition supporters to stage overnight vigils and refuse to leave polling stations next year before announcement of election results as part of measures to guard against Zanu PF’s rigging machinery.
ReplyDeleteIf Ngarivhume thinks Zanu PF will make the same mistakes it made in 2008 then he has learnt nothing from the 2013 elections! Guarding the polling stations in 2008 would have stopped the tampering with the votes which is why the announcing of results took six weeks. In 2013 things were different, guarding the vote would not have changed anything because the voting rigging had happened already!
We need leaders who can think and not those who are ten years or more behind!
The solution is for Zimbabwe to implement the democratic reforms designed to end Mugabe’s polluting influence in ZEC, Police, etc. How many more decades will it take for the penny to final drop!!!!!
How do you prepare for elections you know are going to be rigged; this is insane. All you are doing is doing the same thing over and over and hope against hope that the result will be different. After 37 years of rigged elections you still hope again hope that Zanu PF will rig the vote but lose the elections.
ReplyDeleteYou see, the insane will keep contesting flawed elections and keep up their hopeless hopes because they cannot see the hopelessness of their endeavours. The insane will never self-diagnose; they will never see any thing wrong with contesting flawed elections even after 38 years and even with someone rubbing their big noses in the bulls***t!
Tsvangirai, Mujuru and their respective followers will happily contest next year's elections even though there is evidence the election is being rigged already - it is clear Zanu PF's war chest is full of the billions of dollars the regime is looting ready to bankroll its devious vote rigging schemes and the party thugs are already frog marching povo to party rallies. In time, they will complain the elections "were stolen" and settle down to repeat the whole charade in another five years.
Blessed are the insane for they will stew in their own stupidity but blissfully unaware they are their own worst enemy! Some will even boast of how rich and varied their "social life is" because they see the wisdom of contesting for the umpteenth time flawed elections! Bless you Shame, after all it is not your fault, you are who you are - a human being in appearance but, sadly, with very few working brain cells.
If I was ever to get a chance to ask God one question then it will be why He punished Zimbabwe with so many idiots? As a country, I believe we have more than our fair share of brain-dead idiots whose IQ is not much better than a sloth!
"The BVR system will stop Zanu PF manipulating the vote!" Tsvangirai told the nation. If a sloth could talk, it would tell you that is nonsense!
In terms of finance alone there is no question that Zanu PF has already rigged next year's elections, the party in loaded with looted cash.
ReplyDeleteZanu PF has very elaborate vote rigging schemes raging from buying traditional leaders who then become de facto party political commissars, buying off party youths with generous allowances and bribes such as land allocations who then become the party's de facto foot soldiers harassing the opposition to create no-go areas and frog marching povo to party rallies, etc.
The party is sparing no expense buying off civil servants buying the senior members cars and making sure the wages of the rest are paid. Before next year's elections civil servants will even get a very significant wage increase, I would wager! Zanu PF needs the civil servants on its side; the vote rigging juggernaut will crash without their dependable mindlessness. They have been central to Zanu PF's vote rigging schemes, they have always done whatever they are told blindly like zombies.
They are as much victims of the regime's decades of misrule but you would not think so given they are the ones who have helped keep the corrupt and tyrannical regime in power all these years!
Mugabe and his cronies are the principle beneficiaries of all the grand theft taking place in Marange and anyone who thinks they are going to give up all this loot, especially when they have the simple option of rigging the vote, is sick in the head.
To hold next year's election with no democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF looting the wealth from Marange and using for its selfish partisan purposes is stupid. The opposition are stone broke and they are the ones who should be demanding the reforms BEFORE the elections more loudly than anyone. They are not doing so because , wth their sloth like IQ, they will never appreciate the true meaning of the looting going on in Marange.
Ever Tendai Biti, who as Minister of Finance during the GNU, had the opportunity to appreciate the extend of the looting going on in Marange but still the seriousness of the matter was lost even to him.
If we are serious about bring about any meaningful political change, an end to the criminal waste of resources and wholesale looting and economic recovery then we must implement the reforms designed to end Zanu PF hegemony. Nothing of any substance will ever change until we implement the reforms!
“Wilbert Mukori how are reforms to be implemented when those in power will not reform themselves out of it?” That is a very good question, Kyle James.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is not a simple one and I will try to make it as simple as I can by breaking it up into segments:
1) It is important that we appreciate that the present route of contesting flawed elections because Zanu PF has refused to implement the reforms is NOT the solution because it does not solve the problem of getting a competent government as Zanu PF has rigged the vote and stayed in power. Indeed, by contesting in the flawed elections we are giving the process some modicum of credibility and thus help perpetuate the system.
2) The second point that must be understood is that the right to free, fair and credible elections is the basis of a health and functional democratic, good and competent government. The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and political nightmares is the country’s failure to hold free and fair elections. So we need to implement the reforms because everyone has the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country, because it is the right thing to do and because we are in a political and economic mess and free and fair elections is the only way out.
3) Zanu PF does not have the right to deny anyone their right to free and fair elections and we should tell the regime so in no uncertain terms. The regime has corrupted out state institutions and is now refusing to implement reforms largely because we, the people, have allowed the regime to do all these things by failing to express our objections.
4) When we got the golden opportunity to get the democratic reforms implemented during the GNU we wasted that opportunity by electing corrupt and incompetent individuals like Morgan Tsvangirai to carry out this important task. Even now with the benefit of hindsight we still continue to follow failed leaders like him with no clue what needs to be done to get the reforms implemented.
5) So, the short answer to your question is: the democratic reforms will never be implement not so much because Zanu PF are refusing to implement them but because we, the people, are not clear what the reforms are and why we need them. If people understood why we needed the reforms then and only then will they demand their implementation and will not take no for any answer from anyone!
@ Kyle
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that it was President Mugabe and Zanu PF's fault that not even one reform was implemented in the five years of the GNU? It was Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends who were supposed to propose the reforms and push them through parliament not Zanu PF for the obvious reason that you keep alluding to; they would not reform themselves out of office. The question then is why did MDC fail to get even one reform implemented?
MDC knew about the need to implement the reforms because SADC leaders reminded them of this; it is a historic fact.
President Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the trappings of the gravy train, a former white owned farm for W Ncube, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. and reforms were all forgotten.
MDC leaders are corrupt, incompetent and they sold-out; this is a political reality that many Zimbabweans have failed to get their head round. Even with the benefit of hindsight and countless explanations of what happened during the GNU you and thousands of others out there still refuse to accept this basic historic fact. The consequences of you lot's mental constipation is that you have continued to follow the same corrupt and incompetent sell-out who have led you from one blunder into the next!
“People know what they want an array of reforms were rolled out and Zanoo publicly stated that will not reform what do you do?” You argue.
For the umpteenth time, Wilbert is not denying that Zanu PF does not want any reforms. What he is saying is the failure to get even one reform implemented during the GNU was because MDC leaders are corrupt, incompetent and they sold-out and nothing to do with what Zanu PF wanted. Zanu PF encouraged the MDC leaders to forget the reforms, yes. And Zanu PF has benefited from the failure to get any reforms, that is true too.
Zanu PF has also benefited from MDC’s decision to contest the 2013 elections even thou they were warned, with no reforms in place, the elections would be rigged. MDC are gearing to do the same again next year even in the growing evidence that elections will be rigged once again!
If the people “know what they want”, as you claim then they would be demanding that Tsvangirai & co. stop contesting the flawed election and thus perpetuate the dictatorship by giving the vote rigging some modicum of credibility!