Zimbabwe is in serious, serious
economic trouble. Unemployment has soared to dizzying height of 90% and has
been 80% plus for the last 15 years already. There millions of Zimbabweans out
there who have yet to get a steady well-paid job. I was out of work for 5
months and to say I was miserable and destitute at the end of that period is an
understatement. My heart bleeds for all those millions of Zimbabweans who have
been out of work for 15 years.
As many as 10 million Zimbabwean have
been out of work for the last 15 years. This means 150 million man-years wasted.
Is it any wonder Zimbabwe is now the poorest nation on the poorest continent on
earth!
My blood boils at the heartless indifference
of the men and women whose corrupt and tyrannical rule has landed this nation
into this hell-on-earth.
“Our nation is going through a
difficult patch. Our children need jobs. Government is doing its best to
turnaround the fortunes of our nation. We are confident that our economy is on
the path to recovery,” said acting President, VP C Chiwenga.
Zimbabwe’s descent into this hell-hole started
soon after independence when Zanu PF rigged those first elections to impose
itself on the nation. The economic decline has got progressively worse and worse
as the gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and lawlessness exemplified by
the seizure of the white owned farms to give to Zanu PF crones got worse and
worse. Although the people were aware of the adverse effect of Zanu PF misrule
they have been helpless to stop it because the party rigged elections.
38 years of criminal waste of the nation’s
material and human resources! And here is one of the Zanu PF ruling elite
dismissing it as a “difficult patch”!
Worse still, VP Chiwenga maintains “government
is doing its best to turnaround the fortunes of our nations.” This is utter nonsense.
In 2016 the then President Robert Mugabe
admitted the nation was “swindled of $15 billion of diamond revenue”. No nation
on earth can afford this kind of haemorrhage much less a country like Zimbabwe
whose GDP is a mere $10 billion! Mugabe failed to arrest even one of the
swindlers up to the time he was booted out of office in the November 2017
military coup.
President Mnangagwa and VP Chiwenga, who took
over power from Mugabe, promised to stamp out corruption. After over a year in
power, they too have yet to arrest even one of the diamond swindlers and
recover even one dollar.
The wholesale looting of diamonds and other
resources is still going full steam ahead as government revenue has not
improved and yet the mining has continued. How does government expect the
economic to recover with all this criminal waste of resources still taking
place?
“You die even for that which is
yours. Our nation still continues to be punished for recovering that which
rightfully belongs to it,” continued Chiwenga.
Zanu PF has blamed the targeted
economic sanctions imposed by the west on some party leaders for the nation’s
economic decline. The VP was no doubt referring to the USA’s refusal to lift
the sanctions following the party’s failure to hold free, fair and credible 30
July 2018 elections. The regime is adding insult to injury.
The Americans went the extra mile to
explain what Zanu PF needed to do this year to get the sanctions lifted. Make
sure Zimbabweans in the diaspora were allowed to vote, the public media was
accessible to all political contestants and not just Zanu PF, make sure the
process was verifiable, transparent and traceable, etc., etc. Zanu PF blatantly
ignored all these things and blatantly rigged the elections.
Many people had hoped the country had
finally turned over a new leaf with the removal of Mugabe in last November’s
coup. When this so called “new dispensation” promised to hold free, fair and
credible elections; the people had dared to believe only to be let down, yet
again.
Zanu PF feared the people would
protest against yet another rigged elections and so gave the 1 st August order
of “shoot to kill” order resulting in the death of six civilians. In the 38
years of Zanu PF tyrannical rule the regime has murdered over 30 000 innocent
Zimbabweans to establish and retain its de facto one party dictatorship.
“You die even for that which is yours”
Yes, over 30 000 Zimbabweans have been murdered for the sole purpose of denying
them their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair
elections and the right to life itself!
VP Chiwenga gave his insulting comments at the
2018/19 “National Thanksgiving and Dedication Service” organised by Faith of
the Nation Campaign in Bulawayo. The theme of service was “It’s Time to
Pray and Work for Unity, Peace and Prosperity.”
What a mockery; how can there ever be
peace and prosperity in country in which those in power have licence to ride
roughshod over the ordinary people, denying them their freedoms, rights, hopes
and dreams; and with contemptuous disregard for the law, common justice, suffering
and even deaths of others! There will never be peace and economic prosperity in
Zimbabwe as long as the country remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and
vote rigging thugs!
After 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule and with millions of
ordinary Zimbabweans living in grinding poverty and hopelessness we must stand
up as a nation and say “Enough is enough! Zanu PF rigged the recent elections
and the party must step down!” It would be unforgivable if we should allow
ourselves to be bamboozled by those who landed us in the mess and have a
selfish in retaining the corrupt and tyrannical system into believe Zimbabwe has
changed when we can see it has not changed one bit! 
38 years of criminal waste of the nation’s material and human resources! And here is one of the Zanu PF ruling elite dismissing it as a “difficult patch”!
ReplyDeleteWorse still, VP Chiwenga maintains “government is doing its best to turnaround the fortunes of our nations.” This is utter nonsense.
President Mnangagwa and VP Chiwenga, who took over power from Mugabe, promised to stamp out corruption. After over a year in power, they too have yet to arrest even one of the diamond swindlers and recover even one dollar.
There is no hope of any meaningful economic recovery as long as the nation remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs.
Zanu PF rigged the recent elections and the regime must be told in no uncertain terms that it must step down.
Acting President Constantino Chiwenga has reportedly reached an agreement with suspended doctors who are now expected to report to work immediately after it was agreed that 60% of their salaries will be paid in foreign currency.
ReplyDeleteIf that is true, then it is a piece of good news for the doctors. Sadly, it will be a drop in the ocean that will change nothing, not even for the doctors themselves. Doctors were being paid a misery US$ 385 per month and paying the 60% of it in foreign currency will not take them to the US$650 per month living wage.
What is required here is for doctors, teachers, nurses, vendors, peasant and everybody with a working brain to realize that the root cause of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is the country's failure to remove from office corrupt and incompetent leaders. Zanu PF rigged the recent elections and that is the number one problem that must be solved.
As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs then meaningful economic recovery will remain a pipe dream!
Most governments would start panicking if unemployment was to surge into the teens, for developing countries adjust that to twenties. SA, the country Zimbabwe should compare itself with given the comparable level of development at independence, unemployment is 27% and the government there is seriously troubled. The fact that unemployment in Zimbabwe has surged to 80% plus for the last 15 years and the country’s leaders are not even alarmed, dismissing it all as “a difficult patch”; says it all.
ReplyDeleteMugabe, Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and the rest of the Zanu PF leaders live in their own bubble of palatial mansions, fleet of cars, 45 gold watches, etc., etc. We wasting our time talking to them about the collapsed health care, education, etc.; they have stopped using the local hospitals and schools a long, long time ago. Indeed, they have accelerated the collapse of the local services by using the funds meant for local hospitals and schools to pay for their services outside the country.
Chiwenga is not an intellectual by an stretch of imagination but even he knows that the Zimbabwe economy is not recovering but sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss. Does he care? No he does not care. All he and his fellow Zanu PF thugs care about is that they have secured their strangle hold on absolute power. “Operation Restore Legacy”, as they called the November 2017 coup, was phase one and phase two was rigging the recent elections.
Corruption in Zimbabwe has been going on at an industrial scale because it has become institutionalised. During the GNU, Tendai Biti complained of the Joint Operation Command (JOC), a junta comprising the top brass in the security services, a select few leaders in Zanu PF led by Mugabe and Mnangagwa, as a parallel government complete with its own sources of funding. He was right, JOC with its billions of dollars from looted national wealth has been the real power behind the scene.
JOC members are the real swindlers behind the looting in Marange, Chiadzwa and other places. Mugabe and Mnangagwa knows who the individuals concerned are but could not arrest them because they are on the list themselves.
Chiwenga can afford to be arrogant and talk of economic recovery when he knows the economy is sinking because he knows that those affected by the worsening economic situation will never hold him and Zanu PF to democratic account. He is just cashing in on Zanu PF’s carte blanche powers to blatantly rig elections!
If we are serious about ending the economic meltdown then we must first end Zanu PF’s carte blanche powers to rig elections!
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa is in a catch-22 situation over whether to implement recommendations of the commission of inquiry into the August 1 post-election violence, which urged him to engage opposition MDC leader Nelson Chamisa to move the country forward.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe is in this economic mess because it is in a political paralysis. The root cause of the latter is Zanu PF’s ruthlessly imposed belief that it is the only one competent to govern the country. The nation has been stuck with the corrupt and tyrannical regime for the last 38 years because it has blatantly rigged elections to stay in power regardless of the people’s democratic wish. Zanu PF has just rigged the 30 July 2018 elections to extend its rule, in total disregard of the party’s own promise to finally hold free, fair and credible elections.
Everyone who is anyone who observed the July 2018 elections has dismissed them as “unfair, the playing field was not level and not to acceptable international standard”.
Zanu PF does not have the democratic mandate to govern the country and should step down.
The proposal that Mnangagwa and Chamisa should meet is just a waste of time. How will the two’s meeting resolve the fact that the elections were flawed and illegal? Another GNU of the two parties will not accomplish anything either, we have been down this route before.
Zanu PF has held the nation to ransom for the last 38 years and we need to put an end to this nonsense. We should have never allowed Zanu PF to get get away with rigged elections in the past and must do so here and now. The mandate to govern must be derived from the people in a free, fair and credible elections and nothing more, nothing less.