“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.” Charles Dickens in Tale of Two Cities.
For Zimbabwe the last 40 years have been the worst of times, the age of foolishness, the epoch of incredulity and the season of Darkness, with none of the positives.
When Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980 some of the white supremacists predicted doom and gloom but none of them ever expected the country to sink this deep into the abyss.
What is worse, even now with the country up to her eyes in this hell-on-earth of our own making, there is a chorus of voices shouting “Full stream ahead!”
“A total of 1500 junior and senior doctors, housing on site for juniors and a vehicle loan scheme,” proposed Dr Ibbo Mandaza, Sapes Trust director and one of the opinion makers in the country.
“It can't be too difficult to set up a fund with an initial sizeable injection to allow for a meaningful number to access initially, they can even purchase vehicles for the scheme, for economies of scale, waive duty (nothing new there), for seniors, perhaps access to state/council land for housing.”
Yesterday Econet owner, Strive Masiyiwa, was offered to pay the doctors a living wage and now Dr Mandaza is proposing an improved offer for doctors. Of course, this will not change anything because there are no nurses, no equipment, no medicine, no water, no electricity, no fuel, no cash, etc., etc. In short the two still have their heads buried in the sand and age of foolishness continues!
The solutions to the challenges Zimbabwe had in 1980 are totally irrelevant to the challenge we face today. 39 years of this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime has sucked all the blood and marrow out of the Zimbabwe economy.
Zimbabwe is a failed state and stone broke because of the decades of criminal waste of human and material resources. The ruling elite have creamed off the nation’s resources for selfish purposes, building multi-million dollar mansions, commandeering productive farms only to abandon them, etc.
The country’s health care services has been allowed to rot, like many other national institutions, because the ruling elite source their five-star health care outside the country. Zanu PF have long stopped caring about our local health care services and so firing the striking doctors was just the coup de grace and not the bolt out of the clear sky some people would like us to believe.
Even if someone was to step in and provide the housing, cars, etc., Mandaza is wittering about, that will not restore out health care services because we will still need nurses, medicines, working equipment, water supply, electricity, etc., etc.
Zimbabwe is in this serious economic and political mess because the country has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF for 39 years because the party rigged elections to stay in power. Zimbabwe’s problem is one of chronic bad governance.
“People are dying. It is a life and death situation,” Mandaza readily admitted.
Yes, the situation in Zimbabwe is dire but all because for decades we, the people, have buried our heads in the sand and would not deal with the elephant in the room - the curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections, the regime is illegitimate and must step down; so the country can finally implement the democratic designed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, of substance can ever be accomplished until we cure ourselves of this curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Nothing!
Many people in Zimbabwe have looked to people like Dr Ibbo Mandaza for political guidance only to find themselves totally lost! Dr Mandaza has encouraged the opposition to contest elections in the past, for example, arguing they would win even with no reforms in place. The opposition have done so with the disastrous consequences we see today.
ReplyDeleteOf course, even if the doctors got everything Mandaza is proposing plus the generous salaries from Masiyiwa, this would not solve the country’s health care crisis but, as you rightly point out, there are many, many other issues that must be addressed too. The only sure way to address these other many issues is by addressing the problem of bad governance - the elephant in the room Mandaza and company are refusing to deal with.
After 40 years of burying their heads in the sand it is shocking that we still have people out there who still refuse to see the futility of pretending the country can still have the corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF government and still prosper!
@ Dobbs
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the nation would be very foolish indeed to see Kasukuwere as someone who will get them out of this mess given he played a major role in landing us in the mess in the first place.
You keep talking of getting Zanu PF out of office "using international laws"! What laws?
MDC got into power by promising the people democratic changes but failed to say what these changes were much less how they were to be implemented. After 20 years on the political stage MDC has failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
It looks like Albert Matapo and his People Power Movement is just another MDC promise to bring change using international laws but would not name even one of these laws!
@ JJD Dube
ReplyDelete“There is a crisis of unprecedented proportions and the nationals sit and wait for divine intervention. Please remember that manner do not fall from heaven any more as far as I have known, regrettably, over the years,” you said.
Could not agree with you more, this is a man-made crisis and we should have seen it coming all these last 39 years if only had our eyes open. There will be no divine intervention because God does not do for man what man can do for himself if he would be bothered.
Zimbabwe is for all practical purposes the Biblical Garden of Eden, we used to be the breadbasket of the region until Zanu PF thugs seized the farms. So why should God supply manna in the Garden of Eden????
Yes, we had a serious drought but why were grain silo empty even after a season of plenty???
Zimbabweans are not yet ready to deal with the problem of rigged elections and bad governance and, until they do, the nation is set to sink deeper and deeper into the hell-on-earth of our own making!
@ Tawanda Manjoni
ReplyDelete“The ordinary depositors get what the RBZ says people and organisations must withdraw on a daily or weekly basis. And what the apex bank says they must get is, as already said, very little. The "special" depositors, predictably, get more than what the RBZ says clients must get on a daily or weekly basis. As Mangudya told us, it's not as though they are breaking the law, because the discretion is with individual banks,” you said.
“Of course, there is a stinking contradiction in that. What's the point of setting cash withdrawal limits if the banks are the ones that are going to decide what to give or keep? It's either you set limits and ensure that they are respected or you let the banks do the deciding. Any other approach is not only inconsistent and contradictory, but an absurdity too. Again, more on this later.
“Nothing surprises you about that if you remember the Gideon Gono era. The RBZ was running the cash-churning printer nonstop prior to 2009. Why, because it needed to use the worthless cash dollar to buy foreign currency. And it made no apologies about, sending its officers onto the black market to offload the Zimdollar and buy forex in broad daylight as in the evening and night. That's on record. And it's highly possible that, out of the money that RBZ is printing, a good chunk is being reserved for things similar or equivalent to what Gono was doing. Taking money straight onto the black market and getting forex as a supplement to raiding innocent nostro accounts.
“Forget about the boring rigmarole above. Just fast-forward to the fulcrum of the matter. When you hear about black market cash leakages, start with the RBZ. It's at the top, literally.”
I agree there is no point in setting a maximum cash withdrawal limit and then say the rule can be disregarded as the bank pleases. The bank in this case is clearly using the rule to justify why some people get the maximum allowed and not one dollar more and yet allow others, willing to do the bank a big favour in return, as much as they wish! CORRUPTION!
The tragedy of the situation in Zimbabwe is that it has favoured the corrupt and punished the hard working and honest people.
Can Zimbabwe register any meaningful economic recovery whilst Zanu PF remains in office? The answer is a no; Zanu PF can never uproot corruption because the party leaders are the Godfathers of corruption and they cannot end corruption without dismantling their own power base. “Zanu PF will never reform itself out of office,” as Jonathan Moyo once admitted.
If we are serious about getting Zimbabwe out of the mess we are in then we must get Zanu PF to step down and get others to implement the democratic reforms. Anything else is a waste of time!
It is believed that part of Mugabe's wealth, as an avid farmer then, includes "5 000 cattle from farms in Mwenezi, Norton, Hurungwe, Chivhu and Beitbridge", 11 combine harvesters and "many houses donated to him since 1980, and buildings not just in Harare, but all over Zimbabwe".
ReplyDeleteAdded the source: "Here in Harare (Cde) Mugabe owned whole blocks of buildings in some streets . . . The estate is so vast those boys (Mugabe's two sons) do not have to work a single day if everything is accounted for . . ."
However, so varied are accounts of his riches that while Celebrity Net Worth — a reputable publication that tracks the wealth of celebrities and influential people — put his worth at US$20 million, in 2001 United States authorities estimated it to be over US$1,7 billion.
Some close family members, who elected to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter, told our Harare Bureau that some of Mugabe's wealth had already been divided up and might never be made public.
Family spokesperson Mr Walter Chidhakwa recently told this publication that the late revolutionary's belongings were distributed in accordance with traditional custom at a memorial held in Zvimba on October 19.
The family flagship property, the palatial Blue Roof mansion in Borrowdale, is valued around US$9 million. However, Blue Roof and the Mount Pleasant house were both Zanu-PF properties. They are currently being transferred to the family.
One of the reasons why Mugabe and his Zanu PF were determined to rig elections and stay in power at all cost is so that they can loot and amass wealth. To allow these people to keep the looted wealth especial given the sorry state 39 years of Zanu PF misrule has left the nation in, would be a dereliction of duty. Right now Zimbabwe’s public health institutions have all but closed down, no doctors, no nurses, no working equipment, no electricity, no water, etc. Surely as much as possible of the billions of dollars Mugabe looted must be recovered and used to rebuild the nation.
Here is someone who lives in a palatial mansion, C & M, has business interests and farms worth multi-million dollars, owns 45 gold watches (a foolish passion), etc., etc. He did not amass all these things from his commander and now VP's wages - they were never US$ 70 per month. And yet he is one pontificating about greed!
ReplyDeleteZanu PF rigged last year's elections, the regime is illegitimate and we must get it to step down. Nothing of substance can ever be accomplished whilst Zanu PF remains in power. Nothing!
Following the solidarity meeting we had today, it was agreed that we should STOP applying because HLF is trying to arm-twist us into accepting.
ReplyDeleteWe have received information that members are now being forced to sign assumption of duty, which is now forcing our members back to work, also the government is asking for a list of those who applied which shows their finger in this HLF plan.
So we are advising our members to withhold the HLF application processes with immediate effect We will patiently wait in the trenches until there is a reasonable offer from the government. ALUTA
Masiyiwa’s offer does not even solve the doctors’ problems in that he will pay them in Z$ and with the country’s hyperinflation, which a shrewd business man like Strive would know about, it will not be long before the doctors are back in financial trouble again. The doctors have rightly asked that their salary should be in US$.
I would have argued the doctors to reject Masiyiwa’s offer from a more wholistic stand point that taking care of the doctors’ needs alone will not end the health care crisis. After 39 years of kicking the bad governance can down the road we have come to the end of the road and we now need to deal with this problem!
If people like Masiyiwa stood up to this Zanu PF dictatorship and demanded an end to rigged elections and bad governance, that will go a long, long way in resolving Zimbabwe’s crisis, much further than the Z$100 million he is offering whose sum effect is to kick the can against the dead end.
@ Alec Mash
ReplyDelete“What about the other professions ..this is the problem with stop gap measures..give all workers a decent wage and you won't even need to offer freebies like free accommodation.. free Zupco rides and free sadza and cabbage.The whole economy needs fixing and industry needs to be productive again..Those who support such measures are just as clueless as the govt,” you said.
You spot on there! Those who think government can increase the salary of the doctors, nurses, teachers and all the other government workers and we will all live happily ever after are being naive, to say the least. Increasing salaries without increasing wealth creation will only fuel the hyperinflation.
What Zimbabwe needs to do is revive the country’s agricultural sector, commerce and industry, etc. and get the nation working again this is the very essence of good governance - the opposite of what we have had these last 39 years. Good governance start with a healthy and functioning democratic system of government and hence the need to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
@ Alec Mash
ReplyDeleteWe have given Zanu PF nearly 40 years in power to deliver mass prosperity , "Gutsa ruzhinji!" as Mugabe never tired of tell us. All the party has ever done is drag us deeper and deeper into the political abyss. Zanu PF leaders are obsessed about getting absolute power for themselves and they do not care that they are ridding roughshod over the people's freedoms and rights to achieve their objective. They also do not care that their de facto one-party state has caused untold human suffering and, with the closure of hospital, hundreds of avoidable deaths every day.
There is no hope of Zimbabwe getting out of this mess without ending this curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Zanu PF must step down because, as long as Zanu PF remains in power, Zimbabwe will never get out of this economic and political mess. We should now focus all our time and energy in getting Zanu PF to step down because only then can we have any hope of ending this crisis.
@ Ezra Sibanda
ReplyDeleteRobert Mugabe is reported to have died and left just over $10m in cash, farms and several houses, but left no will.
We know the truth, he had more money and assets than declared- scattered all over the world. No one has legal right to his estate since he had no will, probably he didn’t want any member of his family to benefit from his loot.
Since he left no will, his cash and assets should be shared by families of victims he killed and maimed.
Even if Mugabe had left a will, his family and friends would still have no right to the looted wealth. Will or no will the thief’s family have no right to stolen wealth.
Mugabe did not leave a will because he dished out most of his looted wealth before he died. Mugabe’s Blue Roof mansion was not his own but belonged to Zanu PF although the party was broke and was failing to pay the party workers! Of course, insisting that the mansion belonged to the party was a deliberate and calculated move to keep up the pretence that Mugabe was faithful to the leadership code, demanding that leaders must own nothing of value.
The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) is struggling to feed and provide medical attention to inmates due to shortages of food and drugs, officials have said.
ReplyDeleteZPCS provincial commanders, Ingutsheni Psychiatric Hospital and Ngomahuru Psychiatric Hospital officials were invited to share their experiences and challenges from their respective institutions.
We can bury our heads in the sand and refuse to accept the reality that Zimbabwe is in serious trouble because of 40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption under this Zanu PF dictatorship. People are dying in their hundreds every day and until we finally wake up to the reality of Zanu PF misrule the situation will not get better.