“ECONET Wireless founder Strive Masiyiwa and his wife, Tsitsi, through their Higher Life Foundation, have set up a $100 million fund which will see up to 2 000 junior and senior doctors employed by government getting $5 000 each on top of what they are earning from their employer.” Screamed the headline!
Very generous offer but is this not just another excuse for kicking the can down the road when we should be dealing with it!
The Zimbabwe economic is in total meltdown because of 39 years of corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF misrule. The nation has failed to remove the party from office because it rigged elections. The economic meltdown is now so serious the nation cannot afford even the most basic health care service - there are no doctors, no nurses, no equipment, no medicine, no water, no power, etc.
Making sure the doctors are paid a living wage is all very well but what good will that do without nurses, without equipment, etc., etc.!
Zanu PF has been rigging elections ever since Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980, this is the elephant in the room; we must deal with it!
Masiyiwa, like so many other leading Zimbabweans out there have done little if anything at all to tackle the country's number one problem of bad governance. So of them notably Professor Mthuli Ncube, Minister Coventry and the troop of monkeys in the opposition have even propped up the Zanu PF dictatorship by taking up senior post in the regime and, for the troops, participating in flawed and illegal elections.
In his Book, Senator David Coltart has admitted that the opposition has not only known that Zanu PF was rigging the elections but worse still that they continued to participation in flawed and illegal elections giving credibility and legitimacy to the illegitimate Zanu PF regime.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” admitted Senator Coltart.
“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”
Zimbabwe is in this economic mess that has left millions of our fellow citizens into a life of abject poverty with no food, water, shelter, health care, etc. This is a man-made problem, a bad governance problem; we must all play out part in address this curse because it is not going away.
Yes, $100 million fund will go a long way to help the poorly paid doctors. But a statement condemning Zanu PF’s blatantly rigging of last year’s elections would have gone a long, long way in helping end Zimbabwe’s curse of rigged elections and bad governance and thus securing a future for not just the doctors but the nurses and the millions of other Zimbabweans out there! Such a statement would have costed you profits in the short term but nothing in the long term as Econet will profit in a prosperous Zimbabwe.
@ Peacemaker Zanu
ReplyDelete“To be very honesty, Senator Risch is out of touch with reality. Ever since the new dispensation came into power, the issue of reforms, whether political, economic or social has been the Second Republic's daily bread. There are a lot of reforms being implemented under President Mnangagwa's Government and only a person who has been living in outer space would claim to have missed these positive goings-on,” you said.
Zimbabwe’s economy is in total meltdown and the the root cause is that Zimbabwe is a pariah state. By blatantly rigging last year’s elections Mnangagwa confirmed that Zimbabwe was indeed still a pariah state and not yet ready to do business with anyone!
If the new dispensation was committed to reforms then why did the regime fail to implement even one token democratic reform?
“It is the economy, stupid!” was the catch phrase made famous by US President Bill Clinton. The American economy was doing well and it helped Clinton get re-elected. The Zimbabwe economy is in total meltdown and the economy will prove the undoing of Mnangagwa just as it was the undoing of his predecessor Robert Mugabe.
Zimbabwe needs a working solution - implement the reforms designed to end the 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship - and not yet another fudge! The only way Zimbabwe is ever going to get the reforms implemented is by appointing a competent body to do it. Zanu PF and MDC are the ones who landed us into this mess and it is nonsense to suggest they are going to get us out of the mess.
ReplyDeleteWe know exactly what we want and are going to fight to make sure we are not short changed!
"Fellow Zimbabweans, brothers and sisters, my message to you all is that time for change is now. No one can free us, but ourselves. The debilitating crisis of Zimbabwe now demands action," MDC organising secretary Amos Chibaya said in a statement.
ReplyDelete"The rogue regime is taking us down the garden path by promises of a better Zimbabwe. On November 17, 2017, we jumped from a frying pan into the fire after the coup. It is now time to pour into the streets and send a clear message to the dictator that enough is enough.”
Yes this Zanu PF regime is a “rogue regime”! We would not have this regime still in power if MDC had implemented the democratic reforms designed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. Tsvangirai and company had five years during the GNU to implement the reforms and failed to get even one reform implemented because they had the snouts in the feeding trough!
These corrupt, incompetent and sell-out MDC leaders did not stop at selling-out by failing to implement reforms but have kept up their habit of treason and betrayal by participating in elections knowing Zanu PF would rig the elections and thus giving the process credibility.
MDC want the nation to join the party in demanding a power sharing arrangement with Zanu PF to National Transition Authority (NTA). This NTA will secure gravy train seats for Chamisa and some of the other senior party leaders. It will not get the reforms the nation has been dying for implemented because Zanu PF with its 2/3 majority in Parliament will never allow any such reforms to be implemented.
As long as MDC’s proposed protest are to press for a NTA then Zimbabwean must stay away. The people made the mistake of supporting the November 2017 military coup which was an internal Zanu PF factional fight and had nothing to do with the fight for democracy. People must be careful not to make the same mistake again by supporting the NTA which is certain to being nothing.
@ Ndlovu
ReplyDeleteYet even you cannot deny an election in which 3 million potential voters are denied the vote and the winner gets 2.4 million, there is no verified voters' roll, etc. cannot be judged a free, fair and credible election.
Zimbabwe is standing on the edge of the abyss; we can bury our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine or we can acknowledge the serious situation and do something about it!
@ Ezra Sibanda
ReplyDeleteIt breaks my heart to see all Doctors going on strike and abandoning desperate patients.
I understand Econet Boss Strive Masiyiwa has offered to pay doctors salaries for 3 months, paying them $5000 each, that will be greatly appreciated.
I hope they can return to work immediately and continue the talks with government while working. I know the impact on health care staff is real when poorly remunerated.
What can doctors do on their own without the nurses, equipment, medicine, etc.?
We need to deal with the elephant in the room and stop pretending the problem will go away. The root cause of our economic meltdown and political paralysis is the corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. After 39 years of rigged elections how many more years are we going to bury our heads in the sand and pretend we do not know what is destroying the nation.
I would to see the like of Strive Masiyiwa grasping the nettle and telling Mnangagwa and company they are corrupt, incompetent and murderous tyrants who are in power only because they rig elections! That will go a long way to end the chaos in Zimbabwe than the $100 million he is offering!
@ Mutambara
ReplyDeleteElectoral reforms must be implemented to enable fair, free and credible elections, reduce disputed poll outcomes and thus prevent illegitimacy. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission must be reformed as the manager of elections in Zimbabwe. It has perennially and consistently — in 2002, 2008, 2013 and 2018 — failed to deliver legitimate election results.
It is pleasing to know you appreciate the importance of implementing the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. You were a senior member in the 2008 to 2013 GNU, a Deputy Prime Minister no less, why did you fail to implement even one meaningful reform in five years?
If you lot had implemented the reforms the 2013 elections onwards would have been free, fair and credible and the nation would be out of the woods and firmly on a recovery path!
The truth is it is the corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF and MDC leaders who have dragged the nation into this mess; it is naive, to say the least, to expect the same tyrants and sell-outs to get the nation out of the mess. These tyrants and sell-outs are now holding the nation to ransom and we, the ordinary Zimbabweans, must stand up to them or this nation is doomed!
The root cause of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is the 39 years of corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. The nation has known since the late 1990s that Zanu PF was destroying the country's economy but has been helpless to do anything about it because Zanu PF rigged the elections.
ReplyDeleteOne does not need to be a rocket scientist connect the dots and come to the conclusion that that the country's economic meltdown was connected with the rigged elections and bad governance. Certainly someone like Strive Masiyiwa would have made that linkage decades ago. The tragedy here is that man like him have never ever lifted a finger to do something to end the curse of bad governance.
Even now with the country sinking in the s***t of Zanu PF’s making he never said a word to question why the nation was being dragged into this. He offered to pay the doctors leaving the regime to continue with its sordid work of dragging the nation even deeper into the s***t!
Masiyiwa is comparable to a doctor who knows the senior doctor should have done something to fix a simple fracture, is paid to do it, waste the money on selfish pursuits and treat the flesh would only. The patience ends up in hospital again and again with the fracture getting worse but still continue to get a substandard treatment.
This time the fracture is a compound fracture and gangrene has already set in. Once again our senior doctor is doing nothing and Masiyiwa, our junior doctors, offers the patient some painkiller to give the senior doctors time.
Of course, Masiyiwa, like the junior doctor, is guilty of criminal negligence in giving someone a painkiller when what they wanted is have the limb amputated to save their life!
In an interesting twist of fate, the doctors and all the other professionals on the coal face of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown are having a taste of their own bitter medicine. Zimbabwe’s professional and intelligentsia have down very little to end the Zanu PF madness all these last 39 years because they thought the economic mess will affect the poor in the country. Now they find themselves right in the thick of it!
In Sudan, doctors, lawyers, engineers and the other professions were at the heart of the revolution that ended the dictatorship in that country early this year. Zimbabwe’s professional have not suffered enough, when they have they will join the demand for good governance!