“Zimbabwean
doctors at public hospitals went on strike on Monday for the second time this
year to demand better pay and conditions, a union official said, as President
Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government struggles with a deteriorating economy,”
reported Spotlight Zimbabwe.
“We
are understaffed and underpaid and there are no medications in the hospitals,” said
Mathabisi
Bebhe, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA).
“We
are really hopeful that the government will intervene as early as possible. The
duration of the industrial action depends on when the government gives a proper
practical solution.”
Zimbabwe
doctors earn $385 a month in a country in which prices of food, fuel and
medicine has soared 300% plus if one is lucky to get them in the first place!
What
is surprising here is that there are still people like Bebhe who are so naïve as
to believe any good can ever come out of Zimbabwe’s failed political system. They
still do not understand that by rigging the recent elections, Zanu PF killed
off all hope of any meaningful economic recovery.
Most
people now acknowledge that Zimbabwe needs an injection of direct foreign
investment (DFI) to revive the country’s comatose economy. Mnangagwa led from
the front on this with his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” call. There has
been very little DFI in the last year and there is no reason to believe there
will be any in the future; not as long as Zimbabwe is viewed as pariah state.
By
rigging the recent elections President Mnangagwa confirmed that Zimbabwe was
still a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. President
Mnangagwa had promised to hold free, fair and credible elections as proof that
Zimbabwe had changed from the Mugabe reign of terror. He failed to keep his
promise and investors are a shrewd lot who were not going to be easily fooled.
So,
whilst the country remains a pariah state, we can forget any hope of any
meaningful economy recovery. Indeed the economic meltdown will get worse. So
instead of going on strike demanding better wages and conditions of service
people should be demanding an end to rigged elections and the pariah state, the
substantive root cause of Zimbabwe’s political and economic mess.
One
had hoped that Zimbabweans, at least the professionals like doctors, now appreciated
the importance of the clarion call for free, fair and credible elections. People
now understood the linkage between good governance and economic prosperity and
that the country would never have economic recovery whilst it remained a pariah
state. Sadly, the penny has not yet dropped, at least as far as ZHDA members
are concerned!
“We
are really hopeful that the government will give a proper practical solution!”
This vote rigging and therefore illegitimate Zanu PF regime is now the problem,
the illness infecting the nation. Zanu PF must be forced to step down. As
doctors ZHDA members should know there is “proper and practical solution” a
disease can ever prescribe to cure itself!
If
the professionals like doctors are still failing to see the linkage between
good governance, free and fair elections and economic prosperity, even after 38
years of failed one-party dictatorship; what hope is there of those in the
rural backwaters doing so!
In
the long run, people get the government they deserve. We, in Zimbabwe, certainly
deserve this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete
with its ever growing entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition parties.
“We
are really hopeful that the government will give a proper practical solution!”
After 38 years of corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical rule; you are still
hopeful the Zanu PF dictatorship will finally deliver long promised economic
prosperity. How insane is that!
A healthy and functional democracy demands an informed and vigilant electorate who will hold those in power to account. And the ultimate expression of holding someone to account is the electorate's ability to remove those in power from office in a free, fair and credible election. Elections in Zimbabwe have become a mockery of what democratic elections should be as Zanu PF has usurped the people's right to a meaningful vote.
ReplyDeleteAll the election observers who witnessed Zimbabwe's recent election have all condemned them as "biased, unfair and failed to meet international standards". Even the SADC and AU teams confined themselves to praising how peaceful the process was but did not dare say they were free, fair and credible because they knew they would be lying.
After 38 years of rigged elections and the nation stuck in this hell-on-earth because we have been helpless stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime for all those years; the need to restore democratic accountability could not be more clearer and more urgent.
There will be no meaningful economic recovery until we replace the corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship with a democratically elected government that is responsive to the demands of the people. This should be obvious to all especially the professionals and intelligentsia! From the way ZHDA members keep harping on and on about better condition from this pariah regime only goes to show how little they understand the linkage between good governance and economic prosperity.
If there is an issue that should unity all Zimbabweans regardless of one's political affiliation, gender, race, tribe, etc. It is the doctors and the other professionals, not unskilled worker muchness the rural peasants whom Zanu PF have reduced to little more than cowering serfs, who should lead in the fight for free, fair and credible elections. Alas, the leaders are themselves clueless what is going on much less what to do about it.
Second only to the corrupt and incompetent politicians, the country’s intelligentsia have been but a curse to this nation!
Whilst I agree with you that this Zanu PF regime is going to collapse because the worsening economic meltdown is socially, politically and morally unsustainable. It is either the people will start a street protest or there will be yet another military coup if the regime does not step down peacefully.
ReplyDelete"In October 2018, I wrote a piece claiming that the ZANU PF government will collapse within six months if the controversial President ED Mnangagwa is not going to form an inclusive government with Nelson Chamisa's team," you said.
You are wrong there.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is because the nation has failed to attract the much need Foreign Direct Investment because the country is still a pariah state. Investors do not do business in pariah state; we should know this by now because that was the primary reason they have shied away all these last 20 years.
When President Mnangagwa seized power last year, he talked of a new dispensation and promised to hold free, fair and credible elections but that was all hot air. He has blatantly rigged the 30 July 2018 elections leaving no one is an doubt that Zimbabwe was indeed still a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs.
Forming an inclusive government with Nelson Chamisa was NOT going to save the country from the economic meltdown because MDC was not going to transform the Zanu PF dictatorship into a democratic one. Everyone, especially the more savvy investors, would have seen MDC leaders as nothing more than whitewashed a tomb. Mnangagwa tried that with the appointment of such individuals as Professor Ncube and Kristy Coventry into his cabinet, it did not stop the economic meltdown!
I bet my bottom dollar that the majority of the ZHDA members do not even know why these recent elections were rigged; that says a lot doesn't it! Zimbabwe's economic recovery will never happen as long as the country remains a pariah state. Of course, it is in everyone's interest that the country has free, fair and credible elections and one would expect the intelligentsia to be leading on this from the front.
ReplyDeleteWhere do these doctors expect government to get the money to pay them from if the economic meltdown continues?
@ Gakangoma77
ReplyDeleteWhy were sanctions renewed?
If you agree Zanu PF rigged the recent elections then you must also agree that the sanction had to stay.
Why are you always complaining about sanctions when it comes to failing to pay ordinary people their due? ED had money to buy new cars for the Chiefs, charter a plane for Grace Mugabe at US$1.4 million, etc. but has no money to pay doctors earning $384 a month?
Zanu PF rigged the elections so that it can remain in power and continue to loot the nation's wealth. Of course there is a link between politics and the economy and those who pretend the two are separate are naive!
ReplyDeleteZanu PF wants the nation to move off the recent rigged elections and this suggestion that it is going to change the minimum age of presidential candidate from 40 to 52 years is just a clever way to achieve that goal. The party has 2/3 majority and it can do so if it so wished and there is nothing the people can do about it. What people CAN DO as of now is demand that the party steps down since everyone agrees Zanu PF rigged the recent elections. People must keep their eyes on the ball!
ReplyDelete