”Following a series of meetings involving striking Health Workers and
their employer, the Health Services Board, Government is gravely concerned that
the situation in our country continues to deteriorate to the detriment of
patients who need and deserve medical attention as a human right in line with
our constitution," said VP Chiwenga.
The sheer hypocrisy of that statement has a stench worse than that of a
skunk!
It is no secret that Zimbabwe’s ruling elite have been going to SA,
Singapore and some such places for all their health needs because the country’s
health care services have all but collapsed a long time ago.
VP Chiwenga, yes am I talking to you Sir! A few months ago you were in
hospital; it was not a hospital in Zimbabwe. None of the junior doctors you are
blaming now for ignoring the patients’ needs were on strike then.
It is the 38 years of poor funding that caused the collapse of our
health care service. And it is you Sir and your fellow Zanu PF leaders who are
to blame for these years of neglect!
"Government is disturbed by the fact that in spite of many
concessions it made to the striking doctors, and the broad agreement reached on
all but two issues, the striking Health Personnel continue to withhold their
labour and negotiate in bad faith even though they are designated as an
essential service under the Labour Act, and even though Government has bent
over backwards to accommodate them," he said.
You are begrudging the striking junior doctors a living wage and yet you
and your family live in unparalleled comfort and luxury. These doctors are
being paid a misery $385 per month in a country where the poverty datum line is
$650 per month! You, Sir live in your C&M palatial mansion, have a fleet of
posh cars, many business interests, farms, have 45 gold watches, etc. And, lest
we forget, each time you and your family needs health service you seek it
outside Zimbabwe - at tax payers’ expense, no doubt!
The government has already “fired” the striking doctors following a
hurried Court Order that declared the strike unlawful. The whole legal process
was so hurried, doctors’ lawyers did not have a chance to represent them in
Court. Not that it would have made any difference to the Court’s decision, of
course.
The reader will remember that this is the same Judiciary that judged the
infamous 2017 military coup as “legal, constitutional and justified”! The coup
was led by none other than VP Chiwenga and President Mnangagwa themselves.
Zimbabwe is the only nation on earth where a military coup is constitutional!
(No doubt if Mnangagwa was ever to catch anyone staging a coup on him, he/she
will be lynched! Meanwhile he has reportedly doubled his security details
following bomb threat on him last June!)
Following a Con-Court challenge of last July’s elections results, the
same “wise” Judges rejected all the evidence submitted by plaintiff, Nelson
Chamisa, and the chief defendant, ZEC. The evidence confirmed what EU and other
election observers stated in their reports.
“Further, the electoral commission (ZEC) lacked full independence and
appeared to not always act in an impartial manner,” stated the EU Zimbabwe
Election Mission final report.
“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained
numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and
verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive
use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election
period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election
campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to
meet international standards.”
Signed affidavits from both Chamisa and ZEC confirmed there was no
verified voters and that some of the V11 forms (summary of the vote count for
each polling station) were missing, although these are legal requirements, for
example. Hence, substantiating the EU report that results could not be verified
or traced.
The Con-Court decided to disregard the evidence before it
reportedly because it was not supported by “primary source evidence in the
sealed ballot boxes”! The judges ASSUMED primary source evidence would prove
all the missing V11 forms would be in the sealed boxes although they did not
demand that the boxes be opened and prove it.
ZEC had three difference tallies of Mnangagwa’s winning votes. Even if
the missing V11 were all accounted for - how this could produce three different
results, no one dared to ask the bench.
As for the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll; no doubt the
Judges also assumed the rolls in the seal boxes were all verified. By whom,
again, no one dared to ask the “wise” Judges!
Doctors are “negotiate in bad faith!” Is government negotiating in good
faith? Government maintains there will be economy recovery, price stability,
etc. and therefore workers must accept the wages on offer as stable although
all signs are that the economic meltdown is getting worse.
Indeed, when has this Zanu PF regime ever done anything in “good faith”
in all its 38 years in power? The root cause of the nation’s worsening economic
meltdown is because the nation has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and
tyrannical regime that rigged elections to stay in power.
VP Chiwenga, you and your fellow Zanu PF thugs rigged the July 2018
elections but what you cannot rig in the economic recovery! Zimbabwe’s health
care collapsed a long time ago and it is not the striking doctors who did that
- Zanu PF did!
Government is the one that is negotiating in bad faith! How can government insist the exchange rate of Bond Notes to US$ is 1:1 when everyone knows in the real world it is 3:1.
ReplyDeleteChiwenga and his fellow ZAnu PF junta have just blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections but insist the elections were free, fair and credible. The regime is illegitimate and the sooner the nation demand that it steps down the sooner the nation can start the serious business of rebuilding the nation's shattered economy!
“There was a meeting this week by the Joint Operations Command, and one of the major issues was to call on President Mnangagwa to address the deteriorating economic situation in the country to avoid a security crisis. The demonstrations will be met with force from government.”
ReplyDeleteThe regime can deploy the Police, Army and CIO to beat up the people into submission the one thing it cannot do is rig economic recovery. The economic meltdown is set to get worse and worse. Zimbabweans are already the poorest people in Africa and now we are competing against ourselves to see how deep we can sink.
After 38 years of Zanu PF gross mismanagement and rampant corruption that has left the country in a real economic mess. Until Zimbabweans wake up to the reality that those who got them in this mess are NOT going to get them out too there is no hope in ending their suffering.
The moral lesson of our 38 years of hell-on-earth is that economic prosperity comes from good and accountable government are good bed fellows just as mass poverty and dictatorship are good bed fellows. The idea we can have a de facto one-party state and still achieve mass prosperity is a a nonsense. We have had a Zanu PF dictatorship for 38 years and mass poverty, that is as one should expect.
@ Musarurwa
ReplyDelete“Zanu PF is almost finished very early this year. This is the worst crisis ED and Chiwenga can never win. And the delay to reason with Chamisa while the nation burns has just made it HARD to negotiate with him. Doctors have snubbed all disciplinary hearings and remain vigilant...others are certainly joining. Soon the nation will inevitably and naturally join...even the police and army...except the Presidential guard soldiers. Its just that plain predictable. Who really advises Zanu PF? Or do they listen to any advice? Perhaps nobody can advise them because of the legitimacy crisis? We shall soon see as situations are about to unfold.”
I agree with you, all except the bit about reasoning with Chamisa. What good will that bring?
MDC had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections during the GNU but failed to get even one reform implemented, for example. Chamisa is now talking of reforms now; it is naive to believe he will get the reforms implemented now.
MDC has failed us too. We need to start thinking outside the box and the binary choice of Zanu PF or MDC the autocratic political system has fostered on the nation. We must acknowledge as a matter of course that there are no quality leaders on the political stage because the dictatorship encourage thugs to go into politics at the expense of competent individuals. We need to clean up the political system and quality leaders will emerge.
Yes, it is tragic that so many Zimbabweans are now out of work and living in abject poverty. But what makes the whole sad story so tragic is that this is a man-made tragedy which should not be happening in this day and age. It is heart-breaking that there are people like Dr Mavaza Mnangagwa and all the other Zanu PF apologists and thugs who are still peddling the autocracy as a system of government and, to make matters worse, they are millions of Zimbabweans who still continue to allow these thugs to rule.
ReplyDeleteHistory is full of example of how nations have prospers when they have system of government that allows a significant slice of the population to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country. History is also full of stories how the nations under tyrannical rule have suffered. Zimbabwe has suffered greatly these last last 38 years because the country has been ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous tyrants.
The people of Zimbabwe can disagree on everything under the sun but should be of one accord on the need to end the autocracy Zanu PF imposed on the nation and restore the freedoms and rights of all Zimbabweans including the right to free, fair and credible elections as pre-requisite to good governance. It is insane that anyone would still want to see the illegitimate Zanu PF remain in office for one more day!
It is not enough to keep talking of the right to free, fair and credible elections but then do nothing when one is denied the said right. It sheer madness to have rewarded Zanu PF with absolute power again and again each time the party rigged the elections! To continue to do so after 38 years and with millions of Zimbabweans destitute, is insane!
People get the government they deserve and we certainly deserve this Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition parties.
James Kazonga
ReplyDeleteWhich one of the two is deluded and demented; the one who says Mnangagwa's "Zimbabwe is open for business!" call failed to attract the the flood on local and foreign investors? Or he who says that there was a flood of investors and that the country's economy is on the path to full recovery and ignore the cash, foex, fuel and other shortages that are getting worse and worse?
VETERAN journalist and founding editor of the Daily News, Geoffrey Nyarota, has been appointed head of journalism and communication training at the Christian College of Southern Africa (CCOSA).
ReplyDeleteIn a country with very few people to be proud of there is a man who has done Zimbabwe proud! He will inspire many of his students to give their best, of that we can be 100% certain.