“Former President Barack Obama levelled stinging criticism against President Donald Trump in a private call to former members of his administration Friday, saying Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is “an absolute chaotic disaster,” and that the Justice Department’s choice to drop charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn undermines the rule of law,” reported Msn News.
“The remarks, first reported by Yahoo News, are a rarity from Obama, who — in public at least — has been reserved in his assessments of his successor since leaving office.”
Well even the most faithful of President Trump’s supporters have to admit the administration’s handling of the pandemic has been one blunder after another. The Americans have one clear advantage, they can replace President Trump.
President Mnangagwa’s handling of covid-19 outbreak has been one blunder after another. And what makes our situation utterly intolerable, we are stuck with the regime.
This Mnangagwa government has failed to follow instructions to “Isolate, test, track, isolate and treat!” given out by WHO. The regime has been so inept it has failed to provide even something as basic as clean running water at quarantine centres hospitals and clinics!
To hide its blundering incompetence the Zanu PF regime is not testing aggressively and is not releasing the figures of covid-19 confirmed cases and deaths. This is foolish since this will only help the virus to spread far and wide.
It was bad enough having a corrupt and incompetent government during the good times, before the covid-19. It is hell-on-earth to have a corrupt and incompetent government during such difficult times as now with the covid-19 spreading.
Mnangagwa blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections thanks to MDC leaders who failed to implement even one reform to stop Zanu PF rigging elections even when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the GNU.
The prospect of having this blundering Zanu PF regime for even one more day is unthinkable and yet the nation is stuck with the regime until 2023 and beyond. The opposition is in total disarray they are incapable to forcing the regime to implement even one meaningful reform before the next elections much less force it to step down.
The people of Zimbabwe have failed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections for the last 40 years. The nation has paid dearly for this foolishness but now with the arrival of corona virus the price the nation must now pay has soared into the stratosphere!
Zanu PF has been a milestone the nation has had to carry these last 40 years. To return Zanu PF through these covid-19 challenging time will be like swimming across the flood river with the milestone round one’s neck! Zimbabwe must ditch this corrupt, incompetent and illegitimate Zanu PF dictatorship a.s.a.p. or the regime will drag the nation into the abyss!
It sounds irrational and unpatriotic to have such wishes: never give Corona stimulus to Zimbabwean government for whatever reason. Mthuli Ncube admitted for the first time that Zimbabwe is heading for domestic collapse that can affect the region of southern Africa. Why write such a letter right in the middle of a pandemic, this country has been at the verge of a collapse for decades. His letter sounded like an ultimatum, a blackmail: "if you do not give us the fiscal package, then you will face the music." Somehow the government of Zimbabwe want to make the international money lenders believe that the citizens of Zimbabwe are the responsibility of IMF, World Bank, and the United Kingdom.
ReplyDeleteThe sad reality is Mnangagwa and company would rather see the people starve to death the whole country burnt to ashes than give up power and let someone else rule it!
This brings the total number of confirmed cases to 36, including five recoveries and four deaths.
ReplyDelete“Case #36 reported yesterday (Saturday) is a 30-year-old male resident of Chegutu district, with no recent history of travel, or any known contact with a person with respiratory symptoms,” Mahomwa said.
“He was referred for PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) testing after testing positive on a screening test conducted at his workplace using Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT). He is asymptomatic, self-isolating at home, with mild disease.
There are three things we should be concerned about here:
1) Zimbabwe has not been testing aggressively all along, up to the end of April the country had done 10 000 tests (it is hard to know the exact number because the regime has long stopped giving details) when it should have done 30 000. Priority for testing are all those with covid-19 symptoms, those who got in conduct with covid-19 patient including those in health care and other frontline workers. This government directive for all workers to be tested before they are allowed to return to work means man-power and testing resources are now being switched to workers away from the set priority groups. This is a very foolish thing to do!
2) Government is not conducting and follow up testing of all these who have tested positive of covid-19. How many follow up tests of case 36 have been done?
3) A very worrying picture has emerged that government is once again not being transparent and honest in its handing of the covid-19 cases and deaths. We all know how this regime has failed to produce verified voters' roll, how ZEC failed to produce all the V11 forms (summary of vote counts in each Polling Station) and yet missing V11 form figures were included in Mnangagwa's 2.4 million votes, etc. The price of falsifying the seriousness of covid-19 is that the virus will spread far and wide and many, many people will be sick and many will die!
Zanu PF is a party of thugs who have ruled the country for the last 40 years because they blatantly rigged the elections and have used brute force to cow the nation into submission. The biggest mistake we the populous have made is to think that if we allow the thugs to do as they pleased they would leave us alone. The thugs took an inch, came back the following day to demand a foot and walked away with a yard; they more the taken the more they have demanded; the greed for absolute power and loot is insatiable!
ReplyDeleteThe few Zimbabweans who mobbed Minister Moyo are not only brave but most important of all are the few who have since realised the folly cowing down to tyrants. Thank you, Nomazulu, for singing their praise!
It is a great pity that so many Zimbabweans still have their heads buried in the sand and continue to bend over backwards to please this corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship.
The regime's blundering incompetence has made the tragic economic hardship and humanitarian suffering and deaths brought about by covid-19 worse. Zimbabwe is paying a heavy price for having a corrupt and incompetent government during such difficult times as now!
@ Netsai Marova
ReplyDeleteWhilst the whole essence of a lockdown in the context of the Novel Covid 19 outbreak is to enforce social distancing, stop contact between one possible host of the virus from transmitting it to the next, barely a few days ago the Zimbabwe Republic police arrested over 400 people at various points across the country and against the recommendations of social distancing.
The law enforcement arm packed hundreds of people taking them to their charge office, ensuring that these captured ones do everything possible to in fact spread the virus amongst themselves should there be any host amongst the arrested, also putting in danger on those who were on duty without any protective gear.
Whilst other countries are putting measures to ensure that during this period of economic activity suspension, members of the public get government support to bridge the economic gap, poor fruit and vegetable vendors in the city of Mutare lost thousands of dollars worth of their fresh produce to Zimbabwe Republic Police officers who besieged the market and reduced their produce to ash.
Zanu PF is a corrupt and incompetent regime and it is therefore not surprising the regime is blundering from pillar to post making a bad situation even worse. Zanu PF's blundering incompetence is helping the corona virus spread far and wide when they should be stopping it spreading. The nation is going to pay dearly for this!
We have had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, notably during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, and we have wasted them all. The chickens have finally come home to roost; there will be gnashing of teeth, wailing, mass suffering and many will die!
Festus Dumbu said emphatically - while also presenting the evidence - that he had contested the polls representing the MDC.
ReplyDelete"The MDC Alliance did not field even a single candidate in the 2018 harmonised elections. I contested in Zaka West clearly representing the MDC, under the MDC Alliance electoral pact
"Even our Declaration of Loyalty Forms were MDC forms not Alliance forms. PDP (People' s Democratic Party) had its own systems, (Welshman) Ncube had his own systems but we converged on the Alliance front," he said.
"It' s surprising to see lawyers of repute choosing to lie and mislead the nation on issues which are straightforward.
"The MDC must take responsibility for their mistakes and regularise every omission for the good of the people' s democratic revolution. Lies have short legs but the truth remains durable," Dumbu added.
The real surprise here is that Dumbu should be surprised by the sheer incompetence with which MDC leaders have handled this Supreme Court judgement. Chamisa shot himself in the foot and yet many MDC leaders have come out with guns glazing defending the indefensible!
The real tragedy here is whilst MDC leaders are fighting each other over trivial matters the country is being ravished by covid-19, greatest challenge of our generation. Zanu PF’s blundering incompetence has made the situation worse and the MDC idiots are not even there to hold the regime to account on any of these blunders!
It is during trying times like this with the corona virus pandemic, the 2008 economic crash, WW2, etc. that nations are tested. Those with quality leaders will sail through and those with mediocre leaders will suffer! Zimbabwe has sunk deeper and deeper into this economic abyss under this Zanu PF regime because of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption.
ReplyDeleteThe country used to produce enough to feed all its people with plenty leftover to be the breadbasket of the region. Mugabe seized the farms and ever since the country has relied on food aid. When the whole world is on fire, each country will be struggling to look after its own people and will not have surplus to assist others especially those with a knack for being wasteful!
Mnangagwa's blundering incompetence is helping the corona virus spread widely and we can expect the infection rate to increase with the coming cold weather. The very fact that Mnangagwa blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections and imposed himself on the nation and now he is dragging the nation into this hell-on-earth makes one's blood boil.
We had the golden opportunity to stop Zanu PF rigging elections during the 2008 GNU but wasted it. Tsvangirai and his MDC friends sold-out! And now the nation is regretting the wasted opportunity.
I agree we are stuck with this Mnangagwa regime; I do not see any meaningful reforms being implemented before the next elections in 2023! It is depressing!
@ Ken Mufuka
ReplyDeleteAs I speak, the Zimbabwe Registrar-General’s office is embroiled in a shenanigan where 11 motor vehicles were ordered and only six were delivered.
In another shindig, a Chinese diamond mining company has muscled out the Zimbabwe Mining and Development Company.
In the 25 July, 2018 report by five Southern Africa State Department veterans, they eviscerated the idea of a “new dispensation and reforms” as a charade.
The gist of that report is that Zanu PF is a master of intrigue, doublespeak and non-reform. The response to Ncube’s urgent letter for help and promise provokes the response: “We have been there before.”
Ever since his appointment as Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube has always considered himself a man of great talent who will fix all Zimbabwe's economic ills in no time! He must have known that corruption was rampant in Zimbabwe and nothing of substance could ever be accomplished until this curse is dealt with.
Within days of joining Mnangagwa's cabinet he must have known that the whole regime was founded on corruption and one could not end corruption without destroying the regime itself.
Mthuli Ncube showed himself to be the village idiot he is in assuming he could still deliver economic recovery without dismantling the corruption. Worst of all, he thought he could bluff and fool everyone into believing he was the smart Alec to convinced everyone he had ended corruption when he had not even touched it!
Mnangagwa was aware of Ncube's letter and the empty promises there in. The two known the promise to end corruption, etc. were just hot air the regime was never ever going to honour.
"Ncube indicates clearly in his letter that the World Bank must “give him money” because Zimbabweans will be driven into unspeakable poverty. Remember he is addressing the mother of all imperialists and running dogs," you said.
Actually Minister Ncube was being truthful for a change, the Zanu PF regime has already driven the nation into unspeakable poverty in its singular desire to remain in power at all cost. The truth is even if IMF, WB and everyone gave the regime all the cash it is demanding that will not save the nation from poverty because the regime will cream off the money and will be back demanding even more or else!
@ Chiganangana
ReplyDelete“I entirely agree with your assessment of the government’s response to the pandemic. I should have further qualified my statement when I said they are “doing well.”
“However, that said, Obama’s statement that even the best of governments could have been challenged partially exonerate what I am trying to say here. I was trying to compare with what has been known as the traditional benchmarks of excellence. They are in a sorry state apart from such countries as Australia and New Zealand.
“There is no denying that much should be done and should have been done. Beside the country’s poor health system, I view the main problem as over centralised of thinking and rigidity in the way of doing business. There should have been a multi - stakeholder comprising every major sectors of the country to oversee the whole implementation process. The country is endowed with boundless talent but all that is laid to waste due to ‘non-tapping’.
“Besides our own weaknesses, the World Health Organisation should have done far much better; they should have acted quickly, declared it a pandemic well in time. Countries like Australia declared it a pandemic and started quarantining well ahead of WHO guidelines. What it is now doing is closing the stable after the horses have bolted out.
“In my opinion, the other problem is the influence of China in domestic affairs, they are not transparent in their dealings with the rest of the world and therefore should not be trusted with their ‘advice/help’.”
Well, I agree with your statement. There is no denying that the corona virus pandemic has posed the biggest challenge of our time and it is challenges like that that separate the man from the boys. When the going gets tough, the tough get going!
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF regime are corrupt and incompetent they have dragged the nation from the jewel of Africa position able to not only feed itself but the breadbasket of the region to become one of the poorest nations. For the last 20 years almost every other year many Zimbabweans have depended on imported food-aid.
Zimbabwe has everything, it is for all practical purposes the Biblical Garden of Eden. This is the age when mankind has used human ingenuity to turn deserts into blooming orchards. And yet we are starving in the Garden of Eden; that my friend is a damning testimonial of our failed leadership!
Zimbabwe was already sinking before the challenge of the corona virus pandemic. Mnangagwa’s blundering incompetence has allowed the virus to get into the country and to spread. As the cold weather approaches, the virus will become on contagious. I just dread to even imagine the scene at one of the rural hospitals with serious sick and dying covid-19 patients.
This is a hospital that, once upon a time had 500 patients but had all but closed after decades of neglect. Patients with simple ailments like high blood pressure have died and now the hospital is expected to deal with covid-19 patients without even a thermometer and running clean water much less the ventilator and other stuff!
We do not have to wait for the covid-19 storm to break to see that Zimbabwe is not prepared to weather the storm. If Zimbabwe has only 36 covid-19 cases and the country have contained the virus then the nation will be spared the suffering and deaths we have seen in other countries. If the 36 cases was all a lie then the nation will pay dearly for it!
Zimbabwe under EU financial crime spotlight.
ReplyDeleteCorruption is rampant in Zimbabwe. In 2016 Mugabe admitted the country was being swindled of US$15 billion in diamond revenue. Who was buying the diamonds and why have the swindlers managed to spend their loot with no questioned asked?
I agree our financial system is rotten to the core. A lifestyle audit of the ruling elite will show that they certainly earn a hell lot more than their declared earnings. The country’s corrupt financial system has allowed these individuals to bank their ill-gotten dirty money and thus mix it with the clean money.
ReplyDeleteAs much as Europe can do something to stop some of the dirty money being deposited in their banks the task of stopping the institutionalised corruption will remain ours and ours alone. It is our responsibility to make sure democratic reforms are implemented so we have free, fair and credible elections, only then can we hope to end institutionalised corruption.
As a rule, people get the government they deserve and we, in Zimbabwe, certainly deserve this corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. Yes the regime has institutionalised corruption and the ruling elite have grown powerful and very wealth making it even more difficult to remove them from power.
Still one cannot deny that in the last 40 years the nations has had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and has wasted them all. The people risked life and limb to elect Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends on the promise they would implement the reforms and thus deliver the democratic changes the nation has been dying for.
When the MDC leaders sold-out it was all water off a duck’s back; the people had no clue what reforms they wanted and so could not hold MDC leaders to account. Even to this day, with all the benefit of hindsight, the people still have no clue what reforms they want.
It seems making sure we have a competent democratic government is a bridge too far for most Zimbabweans. They simply do not have the intellectual capacity to comprehend the notion nor the fortitude to stay the course.
Former USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell said Tsvangirai was "a flawed and indecisive character" and history has show the ambassador was right. It is sad that there are some people who refuse to see Tsvangirai for the feeble and corrupt leader was and continue to pretend otherwise.
ReplyDeleteWhat the Ambassador said of Tsvangirai was equally true of the other MDC leaders hence the reason the party has accomplished nothing under Tsvangirai and continue to do so to this day.
The Actuarial Society of South Africa which is the governing body for the actuarial profession in South Africa has predicted that deaths in South Africa could reach 48,000 by the expected infection peak in September.
ReplyDeleteAccording to reports by eNCA, The Actuarial Society of South Africa has come up with a COVID-19 model which is based on assumptions informed by an extensive scientific literature review by its task team.
Currently, neighbouring South Africa has 10 652 cases, 4 357 recoveries, and 206 deaths.
Singapore’s second wave corona virus outbreak was in dormitory hostels were most migrant workers live. Social distancing and keeping the hygienic condition to stop the virus spreading are near impossible when one has to share a room with three or more others and share toilet and washing facilities with even more people. The government has had to step up its testing and tracking and provided hotel accommodation to ensure the infected were kept away from the rest.
South Africa’s high-density suburbs, as it common in many other African countries, are a lot worse than Singapore’s dormitory hostels. How are the African countries going to contain the virus in these suburbs is anyone’s guess.
48 000 deaths in SA is probably a very conservative guestimate!
MDC MPs has defied Chamisa and attended parliament, according to Mutodi.
ReplyDeleteThis MDC circus will not end some time soon - they are fighting over nothing but, like all village idiots, that is not going to stop them fighting!
In a tweet on Tuesday Chin'ono said, "My very RELIABLE sources in Washington tell me that one of the biggest criminal syndicates used to LOOT the Zimbabwean State through programs like Command Agriculture will soon be on the American sanctions list! Delays were caused by Covid-19 pandemic!"
ReplyDeleteAmerica recently added the former notorious Presidential Guard Commander Anselem Sanyatwe and the feared State Security Minister Owen Mudha Ncube on the list.
Commenting on the matter, Professor Jonathan said, "There's no prize for guessing that it's Queen Bee Tagwirei, Mnangagwa's Peter, and his Sakunda syndicate that have siphoned USD billions of command agriculture funds to acquire ill-gotten assets and to stash in offshore bank accounts, most of which have been traced to Mauritius!"
That would be great news indeed.
America, Europe and many other nations have stopped giving this Zanu PF regime any financial assistance and place its leaders under sanctions to show their displeasure with the regime. But real and lasting change will only come from removing Zanu PF from power.
As the seriousness of the covid-19 situation emerge many Zimbabweans will finally realise the blundering incompetence of Zanu PF has made the situation worse. One hopes the penny will finally drop that to get out of the hell-on-earth mess the nation now finds itself stuck in it must replace this blundering Zanu PF regime a.s.a.p.
Munyeza knew that Mnangagwa was a corrupt, incompetent and murderous tyrant and yet still agreed to be the tyrant's advisor and now wants to pretend he did not know! The people of Zimbabwe must not be so easily fooled!
ReplyDelete@ Fungai Chiganangana
ReplyDelete“It is a major concern to everyone, the health system surely is in a state of comatose! Much is needed to be done. Everything needs to change. Politics aside, China is doing well despite that it is a one-party state and communist for that matter!
“Our biggest problem as Zimbabweans (government) is this culture of centralisation of ideas and rigidity in thinking! Surely we can't keep on importing maize from countries we used to export to?!
“I can give you a good remedy to the maize shortage; set a high producer price in $US well before the rain season - the same $US that was going to be used to import the product will be saved and used internally instead. That way you will see the real farmers emerging, not the command farmers who are draining the fiscus! They grab the money and the inputs and whatever they do with such stuff God knows?
“We can't keep on 'feeding' the command farmers at the same time importing the very products for which we expected from them? On the issue of Covid-19 numbers, that is where my point about China comes in. They cannot be trusted in giving credible advice?”
After 40 years of corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF rule I would not say “Our biggest problem as Zimbabweans (government) is this culture of centralisation of ideas and rigidity in thinking!” I would be more explicit and say our biggest problem is that we are stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime that rigs elections to stay in power.
Many people have fallen into the trap that China is a one-party dictatorship that is doing well and therefore we should concentrate on making our own one-party dictatorship work. Our one-party dictatorship has been a total failure and we should focus on dismantling it and replacing with a justice system in which every citizen has a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
There are some things we can agree to differ, to negotiate, etc. but there are somethings we should never ever give an inch – the rights and freedoms of every Zimbabwean are one of these things.
Zanu PF rigged the July 2018 elections, the regime is illegitimate it must step down. There is nothing to negotiate there either!
@ Fungai Chiganangana
ReplyDelete“Wilbert Mukori, you and me share a lot in our arguments and philosophies and we do understand the Zimbabwean body politic well. The only thing I do is just taking a pragmatic approach based on the fact of reality, the reality being that we find ourselves stuck in this situation and may unfortunately be so for the foreseeable future due to the system they created.
“There is no denying by any sane person of what ZANU (PF) is and what it is capable of doing. My comparison to China is not of envy of the system but an indictment of our system in the sense that the former manages despite being in that situation. The maize example in my previous comment is a good example in the sense that it can be done by any government regardless of how a party comes to power or the ideology it is operating in - that is where my example of centralisation or rigidity comes in. You cannot set a producer price of a staple food during harvest time.”
I agree, you and me are going in the right direction; which is a good start given that the overwhelming are going full steam ahead in the wrong direction. The country would not be up to her eye-balls in this hell-on-earth mess if we have been going in the right direction!
Still, you and me are moving in the same direction but at different speeds! Whilst you are arguing of letting Zanu PF remain in power and try and get the regime to adopt some of your ideas, like giving farmers a guaranteed price, in US$, of their produce ahead of the growing season. A good and pragmatic suggestion.
The regime is not even amenable to good and pragmatic suggestions from anyone because, one, it already has its own Command Agriculture which is paying Mnangagwa and his cronies handsomely thank you.
Two, yes, Command Agriculture has failed to revive the country’s food production and the nation is starving but so what. Zanu PF does not care that people are poor and starving. The regime’s primary concern is looting and making the people happy would be a bonus.
Three, last but most important of all, Zanu PF is not democratically accountable to the people and so does not give a damn what the people think of the regime. Indeed, by making the masses poor, Zanu PF has consolidated its control over the people. The tail is wagging the dog!
After 40 years of allowing Zanu PF to ride roughshod over the people, denying them their freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life. It is insane, not pragmatic, to allow this madness to go on even one more day.