Grace
Mugabe’s son by her first husband, Russell Goreraza has just taken delivery of
a Rolls Royce luxury car worth $300 000 and will soon be getting an Aston Martin
to add to his collection, according to media reports. Zimbabwe’s ruling elite
live in a totally different Zimbabwe at odds with that in which the majority of
Zimbabweans live in.
Unemployment
has soared to 90% plus and, using the Zanu PF regime’s own figures, 72.3% of
our people are now living on US$1.00 or less a day. The country’s health and
education services have all but collapse, would have collapsed completely if it
was not for the foreign donors.
The
tragedy of Zimbabwe is that the economic meltdown the country is facing with
all the tragic human misery it has brought are all man-made. 37 years of gross
mismanagement and rampant corruption has reduced the country’s once strong and
robust economy into ruins. The few ruling elite have sucked the life out of the
nation. The rich are filthy rich and the poor majority and filthy poor!
Many
donor nations are finding it very difficult to justify spending millions of
dollars of their taxpayers’ money in giving a country like Zimbabwe aid. Even
if the aid is used to buy medicine, books and food to feed the millions who are
starving, no one can deny that the ruling elite spending the nation’s wealth on
luxurious confident donors will help the impoverished povo. In other words,
donors are indirectly aiding and abetting the ruling elite’s extravagant
lifestyles.
What
is making Zimbabwe’s political and economic situation so intolerable, to
outsiders, is the mindless indifference of the ordinary Zimbabweans to what is
going on although they are the ones bearing the brand of the whole tragic
situation. Nearly two years ago, Mugabe admitted that the country was “swindled”
of $15 billion in diamond revenue. To date no one has been arrested and not one
dollar recovered. There is evidence that the swindling is still going on and,
worse still, the tyrant is using some of the looted money to bankroll his vote
rigging schemes.
Whilst
the Zanu PF regime is saying there is no money to pay civil servant much less to
buy basic essentials like medicine; the party is spending millions of dollars
buying vehicles for party officials, busing and feeding people attend its
rallies, paying NIKUV the Israeli company helping to corrupt the voters’ roll,
etc. Many people believe that Zanu PF spent $4 billion on its vote rigging
schemes in the 2013 elections; the regime will easily spend $10 billion for the
2018 elections.
Zanu PF
has the 2018 elections in the bag already and only fools still bother to
register as voters, to produce manifestos, etc. SADC leaders have already
advised Zimbabweans not to contest elections without implementing the
democratic reforms designed to stop the vote rigging, the wholesale looting to
finance party activities, etc. Sadly, their advice has all fallen on deaf ears
and numbed brains!
Zimbabweans
are the poorest people in Africa and our material poverty is a reflection of
our intellectual poverty. Zimbabwe is a rich country; where else would someone
like Russell Goreraza, with no talent and has never done a single day’s work,
afford a $300 000 luxury car? Our mass poverty is man-made, millions of
ordinary Zimbabweans had to be rob clean so that a bum like Russell can live is
luxury. Why the millions accept such an outrage is where the intellectual
poverty comes in.
Of
course, it is insane to contest elections you know are going to be rigged,
especially after 37 years of rigged election, hoping against hope that Zanu PF
will rig the vote but, somehow, lose the elections.
In
the end, people will always get the government they deserve. After 37 years
since our independence, we cannot deny that we have a government we rightly
deserve; an incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete
with the entourage of 50 plus corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition
parties. Perfect! Just what the doctor ordered for a mentally challenged
electorate!
The Gods
help those who help themselves. It is undeniable that Zimbabweans have done
precious little to stop Zanu PF dragging the nation into the political and
economic hell-hole they are in today. Donors are sick and tired of Zimbabweans doing
nothing to stop the extravagant waste of the nation’s resource by the likes of Russell
Goreraza whilst they live in grinding abject poverty. It is little wonder that some donors are now
openly talking of cutting their aid budget to Zimbabwe, notably the Americans;
and who can blame them.
President Mugabe has often boasted at how Zimbabweans have put up with a lot of economic hardships and never complained. We are a "resilient" people he said. If resilience is a quality he admires so much then why is he not exercising the same quality himself and imposing it in his own family.
ReplyDeleteThere are hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans out there, same age as Russell, whose lives are as bleak as a lone traveler in the middle of the Sahara Desert. They cannot even find a job to pay for one room shack and put food on the table. Of course, they would love to own a car, even some old banger but they have long thrown away such things as foolish day dreams.
Mismanagement and corruption has rob millions of our people of all hope for a life with dignity all because the nation's wealth and resources have been diverted to pay for the insatiable greed of the few, the ruling elite.
When President Mugabe talks of the ordinary people's resilience he is mocking the poor for our stupid at failing to see how we are being rob blind in broad day. It is true that it is us, the poor, who are giving up our share of the nation's riches so that greedy people like Russell can have a Rolls Royce limo whilst we die of hunger and disease!
Russell had to go America with President Mugabe and the rest of the family, it is a lot easier to shop for the model of Aston Martin he likes in person than doing so on the internet.