According to New Zimbabwe President Emmerson
Mnangagwa was “moved” to facilitated the return home from Singapore of former
first lady Grace Mugabe whose mother died last week.
"The president decided to spare the former
first lady the inconvenience of scheduled flights at this difficult moment so a
chartered plane was arranged for so she could return home as quickly as
possible," said a senior Zanu-PF official.
But was a chartered plane really necessary? Zimbabwe
is the poorest nation in Africa and yet the country’s ruling elite have
continued to enjoy lifestyles of unparalleled leisure and luxury.
President Mnangagwa has bought new cars for the
Chiefs, all Zanu PF parliamentary and senate candidates in the elections, party
leaders, rogue war veterans. The election has costed $900 million by some
people’s reckoning but some believe $4 billion will be closer to the mark.
Mnangagwa gave the late MDC leader the $4
million Highlands mansion and paid his R2 million hospital bill.
To Mugabe and his family Mnangagwa has gave the
tyrant a generous golden hand shake and allowed him to keep all the millions of
dollars of looted wealth. Now this, a chartered plane from Singapore!
This is all happened at a time the country is
running out of medicine and cash and most commodity prices are soaring because
of shortages.
British MP, Kate Hoey, has called Mnangagwa
“mark 2 Mugabe” when the two are big spenders for one thing. Whilst Mugabe had
the advantage of inheriting seven fat cows from Ian Smith Mnangagwa has
inherited one miserably thin cow from Mugabe.
It took Mugabe 30 years to take down the
Zimbabwe economy from one of the top five richest in Africa to the poorest in
Africa. By the time the tyrant was forced to retire in last November’s military
coup unemployment was a nauseating 90%; the country’s health services had all
but collapsed hence the need for the dictator and his family’s need to fly to
Singapore for all their health needs; ¾
of our people lived on US$1.00 or less a day; etc.
How much worse off can someone already living
on US$1.00 or less a day be? How long is a piece of string? Give Mnangagwa 30
months, not years months, and many will know how much more miserable life is
living on US$1.00 or less a week, having no medicine, etc. Hell is a bottomless
pit and it seems Zimbabweans, by keeping Zanu PF thugs in power, are determined
to explore its deepest and darkest recesses!
“The Province’s leading referral centre,
Masvingo Provincial Hospital is facing a severe shortage of essential drugs,
triggering a high mortality rate at the government run health centre,” reported
Zimeye on the critical shortage of drugs in Zimbabwe.
“The worst affected departments include casualty, chronic illness and children’s wards respectively. Asthmatic patients have not been receiving treatment for the past few months because the nebuliser machine developed a fault and had since not been maintained . Sources at the hospital told ZimEye.com yesterday there was a sharp increase in the mortality rate among infants and patients referred to the casualty section due to the critical shortage of essential medicine.”
So President Mnangagwa was “moved” to
charter plane for Grace Mugabe just to save her “the inconvenience of scheduled
flights”. At a cost of $1 million or so; money that would have bought enough life-saving
medicine for 10 000 plus who now dying unnecessarily. It is sickening!
Ever since Mnangagwa seized power from Mugabe in November last year, he has been preoccupied with consolidating his hold on power. Nothing else matters not even the lives of 100 000 babies!
ReplyDeleteMugabe and Zanu PF had stayed in power for 37 years by ruthlessly silencing the critics and the masses and by rigging the elections. The first time Mugabe took his eyes off the ball in the 2008 elections he lost those elections as a result of Mujuru's operation "Bhora musango!" (Kick the ball into the bush!) in which voters were instructed to vote for Zanu PF MP but vote MDC presidential candidate.
It took Mnangagwa and his ruthless thugs to force ZEC to whittle down Tsvangirai's 73%, by Mugabe's own Freudian slip, to 47% to force a run-off. In the run-off the thugs turned on the wanton violence to secure Mugabe an 84% victory.
After the 2008 Bhora musango debacle Mugabe bought all Zanu PF candidates, party officials, key officials like ZEC, etc. new cars and other bribes to keep them all sweet and loyal to him. Mnangagwa has seen to it this tradition continued.
Mnangagwa has fit the ground running in buying political loyalty through patronage. Soon after the November 2017 coup he moved swiftly to promote Chiwenga, Shiri, Sibusiso Moyo and all the coup leaders. He has promoted hundreds if not thousands of others in the army followed by a 22.5% salary increase for all in the army.
Mugabe had promised to buy Chiefs new Isuzu twin cab trucks, a bribe for their role in subduing the rural voters turning them into serfs beholden to Zanu PF. Mnangagwa moved decisively to make sure all the Chiefs got their Isuzu trucks. All Zanu PF candidates, party leaders, the rogue war veterans leaders, etc. also got new cars plus other bribes.
There is no doubt that Mnangagwa was gutted when Mugabe came out and openly backed Chamisa in the 30 July 2018 vote after all he had done to buy the tyrant's royalty. Clearly the tyrant felt the generous pension, being allowed to keep his looted wealth was not near enough. And no doubt chartering the plane is just one more no expense spared gesture by Mnangagwa to buy Mugabe's loyalty.
As for the 100 000 babies whose lives would certainly be lost unnecessarily, Mnangagwa does not care. The babies, their parents and the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans' very lives count for nothing in Mnangagwa's political power game because they all have a vote.
In a country like Zimbabwe where elections are rigged those who have a vote do not count it is those who can rig the elections who matter, they have the veto!
So we should not be surprised that President Mnangagwa was "moved" to charter plane for Grace Mugabe when that money should have been used to save the lives of 100 000 babies. He was moved by the need to secure Mugabe's veto, what good is getting 73% of povo's votes when the ruling elite can brush that aside with their veto!
@ Maonero
ReplyDeleteYes Grace Mugabe is a disgrace but she, nonetheless wields a lot of political power a lot more power than the ordinary Zimbabweans who have a vote when she has the veto!
Was this article meant to make Zimbabweans feel good that we are not the only country that has rigged elections? After 38 years of rigged elections making Zimbabwe the poorest nation in Africa and therefore the world we have certainly won the race to the bottom! Now we want to get out of this man-made hell-on-earth and the last thing we want is some fool telling us other nations too have rigged elections.
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste of time and space!
@ Uncle Sam
ReplyDeleteHow many blacks were beaten to death in Ian Smith's jails and how many of those responsible were ever convicted of their crime in Smith's courts? Are you then suggesting that no blacks were ever murdered by the white colonialists because no one "testified in a court of law"?
Are you denying that Zanu PF did not rig the 2008 elections and everyone then, included SADC and AU, were wrong in refusing to recognise the results and thus forcing Zanu PF to go into the GNU?
Zanu PF rigged this year's elections and by participating in these flawed elections without even demanding that there must be a clean and verified voters' roll MDC leaders only help to give credibility to a flawed process.
Everyone with half a brain knows that the elections were rigged, especially the shrewd investors. We can forget about the economic recovery because investors do not do business in pariah states ruled by vote rigging thugs!
@Munya
ReplyDeleteYour argument is fundamentally flawed in that it has failed to clearly identify and separate the cause from the effect and so you are prescribing the cure for the symptoms and not the disease.
"This level of thinking is so surprising. You want European governments to boost your economy yet you can't comply with their conditions. Africa's problem has nothing to do with elections. Its corruption period. Stop corruption," you argued.
"When our economy was ailing all the years our ministers had top of the range cars and build mansions and became richer than western governments politicians. Yet they come out of mansions and tell us it is the Western governments causing us to be poor."
Of course, the root cause of all our problems is our failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. We have failed to remove the corrupt leaders from power not so much because they are corrupt but because they rigged the elections to stay in power.
The primary purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to implement the raft of democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. Mugabe lauded Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders with all manner of gravy train trappings, ministerial limos, generous salaries and allowances, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. In return MDC leaders kicked the reforms into the prickly pear thicket!
We all know how filthy rich Zimbabwe's ruling elite are. President Mnangagwa has just spend $1 million to hire a plane to fly back Grace Mugabe from Singapore because he did not want her to suffer "the inconvenience of commercial flight" at a time when babies are dying for lack of medicine. He values Mugabe's help to rig elections more than all povo's millions of votes because votes count for nothing is you rig elections!
Until we finally do something to end the scourge of rigged elections Zimbabwe is not getting out of this hell-on-earth Zanu PF has landed us all in!
For donkey years now, the donors have bought Zimbabwe's medicines and other essentials but when the donors see our government spending millions and millions of dollars of new cars, chartered planes, etc. they have to ask themselves how long can this go on. If we the people affected, the ones whose babies are dying unnecessarily are not demanding an end to this madness then why should the donors step in and buy the medicines for a nation that has money to waste on luxuries.
ReplyDeleteIf we, the people think that government squandering $1 million on a chartered plane whilst 100 000 babies have to die unnecessarily is money well spend then we surely deserve what we get.
All this is happening because President Mnangagwa is able to rig elections. He knows that if the 100 000 parents whose babies he has just condemned to an early grave had a vote they will never vote for him! They all have no vote!