Zimbabweans are a naive and gullible people, easily fooled; hence the reason the country is in such a mess. Indeed, in some cases as now we like to be fooled so we do not have to deal with the consequences of knowing the truth!
Only a village idiot believes Zimbabwe has had 88 415 corona virus cases and 2 747 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic. One of the reasons why the numbers have remained very low is because the regime has not been testing for the virus even when common sense dictated it. By not testing, tracing and tracking as diligently as we should we have allowed many people with the virus to continue to mix and spread the virus.
We have found comfort in the official figures suggesting there are very few people out there with the virus and dying from it. False comfort since many more people have the virus and died than the official figures and more significantly hundreds of thousands of those who had the virus and thousands of the died would have been spared if only the nation had the common sense to demand to know the truth and due diligence in the testing!
We are a foolish and conceited people who insist on seeing what we want to see regardless of how far-fetched that happens to be from the reality. Zimbabwe is in this hell-on-earth of our own making and we are not getting out of it by pretending everything is just fine!
The corona virus has happened at the time when Zimbabwe was already down and out after decades of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness making the country a Banana Republic in which nothing worked. The idea that the country has fared much, much better than countries like SA with a robust economy, working health care services, etc. is just nonsense.
SA has over 2 million corona virus cases and over 68 000 deaths and Zimbabwe, with ¼ SA’s population and an all but collapsed health care service and economy, should be faring far worse than having ¼ of SA’s cases and deaths. Instead of over 500 000 cases and 17 000 deaths; Zimbabwe, officially, has 88 415 cases and 2 747 deaths, less than 20% in each case. No wonder the Zanu PF regime has been bragging about it!
"Despite Zimbabwe's COVID-19 response being one of the best on the continent as evidenced by fewer deaths and infections as compared to other nations, for government, a single death is one too many," boasted Zimbabwe’s Minister of Information (read Propaganda), Monica Mutsvangwa.
In a way that there should be such a wide discrepancy between the official corona virus cases and the real numbers on the ground should not come as a surprise; Zanu PF ruling elite have always ridden roughshod over the masses denying them their freedoms and rights including their right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life. The testing, tracking and isolation protocol was diligently carried out to reduce any of the ruling elite getting the virus; the protocol was largely ignored when it was the life of povo at stake.
To include all the corona virus cases and deaths among the povo in the official count would have exposed the Zanu PF regime’s blundering incompetence in the handling of the pandemic and that was sacrilege.
Indeed, the first thing the Zanu PF regime soon after the outbreak of the pandemic was to ensure it alone controlled who get tested of the virus and only the official figures are released for publication. A 20-year jail sentence awaits anyone who publish anything other than the official corona virus cases and deaths.
A 20-year jail sentence for taking away Zanu PF’s bragging right that the regime’s handling of the corona virus pandemic is “one of the best on the continent” although we all know that is a lie. Worse still, this is a damned lie that has helped the virus spread more widely and faster causing more economic disruption and more human misery and deaths.
There is not one Zimbabwean out there with half a working brain who does not know that the official covid-19 cases and deaths are damned lies; they know in country of 15 million the undertakers would not be overwhelmed by 50 or so additional deaths per day over the normal. And yet the majority of Zimbabweans have elected to believe the damned lie “Zanu PF’s handling of the pandemic is one of the best on the continent” because to do otherwise will force them out of their sloth-like slumber – this, just like Zanu PF’s lying, is nothing new.
Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2018 elections; the regime denied over 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote (more than the 2.4 million who voted for Mnangagwa), ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, etc.; and still the regime maintain the elections were legal, free, fair and credible. Zimbabweans, for the sake of maintaining their sloth-like slumber have pretended their right to free and fair elections is not a right but a privilege and so the blatant vote rigging was all water off a duck’s back.
It is true that in the long run, each nation get the government it deserves; we in Zimbabwe certainly deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with the entourage of equally corrupt and useless opposition parties. Zimbabwe is in this man-made economic and political mess because for the last 41 years and counting Zimbabweans have maintained this stony indifference to criminal waste of the nation’s material and human resources, causing untold human suffering and deaths, by the country’s ruling elite. It sickens me to admit this but readily do so because it will kill me not to; it is far better to throw up, unsightly as that may be, than hold down the poison.
Mankind is a creature of reason and one does not need to be a rocket scientist to an election in which 30% plus of the electorate are denied the vote cannot be a free and fair election. When 49% of the population is languishing in abject poverty, basic services such as education and health care have all but collapsed and the corona virus is caused heart-breaking human sufferings and deaths – far more that the official lies; surely this must force everyone out of their sloth-like slumber and demand change. Sadly, the sloth has not even stirred!
The corona virus storm is not done yet, Zimbabwe will have done very well indeed if the country was to vaccinate the 10 million herd immunity by this time next year (the regime claims it will achieve this target by end of the year, that is doubtful given it took six months to vaccinate 1 million (first dose) and 600 000 (required two doses) and so the grime-ripper has time to increase the covid-19 cases and deaths toll.
And as long as the country remains a Banana Republic governed by corrupt, incompetent and murderous tyrants who are not democratically accountable to the people, the country’s relentless march deeper and deeper into this man-made hell will continue; the march will continue as long as the people remain in their sloth-like slumber. The sloth-like slumber has lasted 41 years now, only time will tell how much longer it will last?
A once vibrant Zimbabwean economy has been ruined. A lot of Zimbabweans have fled the country to seek refugee in other countries as the economy continue to bite the ordinary people.
ReplyDeleteCorruption has become another pandemic hitting this Southern African nation which has been ranked 160/180 by Transparency International
It is so disturbing that in some revealed audited statements about US$24,4 Billion was lost/stolen through Treasury since 2015 and we still blame sanctions.
The scourge of corruption in Zimbabwe has caused even the most ethical, religious and morally astute societies be vulnerable or have been infested with this corruption virus.
The country is in the middle of the corona virus pandemic that has cause serious economic disruption, the little that was still taking place, left many sick and hundreds dead a situation made infinitely worse by the country’s economic collapse due to corruption and mismanagement. The nation has drifting into more and more trouble for the last 42 years and even now with situation so dangerous people’s health and their very lives are at stake and yet still the nation is doing nothing to end the madness. If anyone deserves to suffer in this world, it is us Zimbabweans.
It is said one can fire a gun in the face of a sloth and all it will do is open its eyes, blink and few times and go back to sleep; who would have guessed there human beings whose mental agility is on par with that of a sloth!
Even if it is both corruption and sanctions that have destroyed Zimbabwe the question remains why have Zimbabweans done nothing to stamp out corruption - it is Zimbabweans themselves who behind corruption and therefore within our powers to deal with! You want to end sanctions which are not in your powers to lift but cannot deal with that which is in your power to do!
ReplyDelete@ The News Hawks
ReplyDelete“Mnangagwa does not want Rugeje, whom he knows to be one of Chiwenga’s strongest and fearless allies. That’s why he removed him from heading the Zanu PF commissariat after the 2018 polls. He didn’t want him there in the first place,” a source said
It came just two days before the 31 July 2020 protests. Mnangagwa feared an uprising by the opposition and Zanu PF internal rivals. This was similar to events in January 2019 during unrest that left a trail of death and destruction.
In an unprecedented move, Mnangagwa had brought in Central Intelligence Organisation director-general Isaac Moyo to present a report to the effect that some senior party officials were working with the opposition and civil society activists to organise an anti-government revolt.
“Although Chiwenga was strategically absolved of any wrongdoing, it was said the so-called traitors were acting in his name. As a result, the 342nd session of the politburo suspended its secretary for Health Cde Cleveria Chizema after Lovemore Matuke, head of the security department, presented Moyo’s report on how internal forces were working with opposition activists to subvert Mnangagwa’s leadership.”
However, during the ensuing heated debate Rugeje reminded Mnangagwa how he had come to power and how Chiwenga and others like him had put their heads on the block for him.
He also reminded Mnangagwa that he has offices – Munhumutapa Building, State House and Zanu PF headquarters – not his farm where people always gathered for unofficial meetings and plotting.
That was enough to ruffle Mnangagwa’s feathers and widen the rift between them.
Rugeje was central in the coup against Mugabe.
He was, however, retired from the military alongside Chiwenga, who was the ZDF commander, the late Perrance Shiri, then Air Force commander and Sibusiso Moyo, former ZDF chief-of-staff.
Chiwenga became co-vice-president, Shiri and Moyo ministers of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs respectively, and Rugeje Zanu PF commissar
Zimbabwe had the golden opportunity to end Zanu PF’s corrupt and tyrannical de facto one-party dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Sadly, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends, who were entrusted with the task of implementing the reforms were corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent; they failed to get even one token reform implemented and the opportunity was lost.
The GNU forced Zanu PF to give up on the de facto one party state in favour of allowing the opposition to win a few gravy train seats as the price the party was to pay for getting legitimacy after rigging the elections. Zanu PF has just announced the party will not extend the right to vote to the 3 million plus Zimbabweans in the diaspora, a reform Mnangagwa himself had promised after the 2018 elections.
Of course, this is a blatant vote rigging act because it is no secret most of the Zimbabweans in the diaspora are economic and/or political refugees; they blame Zanu PF for their situation and so are unlikely to vote for the party. And the opportunity for rigging the diaspora vote is not as clear cut as rigging the local vote.
Mnangagwa won the 2018 elections with 2.4 million votes or 50.8% of the cast vote and so 3 million is a very significant figure, 30% plus of the electorate. How can an election in which 30% of the electorate are denied the vote be legal, free, fair and credible?
So Zanu PF is blatantly rigging the elections, thanks to the corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders the party is guaranteed legitimacy regardless of the rigging. And once in power, all Zanu PF thugs do in fight each other for positions and partake in the wholesale looting of the nation’s resources. This is the stuff nightmares are made of; for Zimbabwe, the 41 year and counting nightmare!
The nation should have implemented the democratic reforms and dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship during the GNU and now we are paying dearly for our folly. We will have to work hard to create another chance to implement the reform, a difficult task but not an impossible one!
@ The News Hawks
ReplyDelete“Adriano Navunga, director of the Maputo-based Centre for Democracy and Development, said it would have been ideal if Rwanda, which has strong diplomatic relations with the United States and France, worked with Sadc or the African Union.
“Indeed the South Africans are not happy, understandably. The South Africans have been in the forefront with the Sadc deployment to Mozambique and when the extraordinary summit of the heads of state and government endorsed the recommendation to deploy a Sadc standby force to Mozambique it was also agreed that Mozambique could tap into other support from African states,” Nuvunga said.
“However, the understanding was that such additional support would come within the framework of Sadc, not parallel to Sadc. But the reality is the current Rwandan deployment is not only parallel to Sadc but it has been given priority. This might have to do with the readiness of Rwanda. It has already deployed 1 000 troops and Sadc is still preparing itself although it has communicated having a US$12 million budget which is too small for the type of deployment that they want to make. So their dissatisfaction is understandable.
The Sadc intervention force, according to a leaked report done by a regional technical team, would comprise three light infantry battalions of 620 soldiers each, a light infantry battalion headquarters with 90 troops, two special forces squadrons of 70 soldiers each, 100 engineers, 100 logistics coordinators, 120 signals experts and 42 technicians, among other military personnel.
There are also helicopters as well as transport aircraft, patrol ships, a submarine and a maritime aircraft to patrol the Cabo Delgado coastline to intercept insurgents’ movements, supplies and combat their drug trafficking activities, said to be a source of financing for the insurgency.
The technical assessment team also recommended a phased approach implemented in four stages: deployment of intelligence assets (land, air and maritime) to understand the insurgents’ operations; special forces and naval equipment; pacification operations and withdrawal.”
This is a war of Mozambique’s own making in that the country has failed to delivery economic prosperity and to add insult to injury failed to give the ordinary people an meaningful say in the governance of the country, it is no secret that the ruling party has rigged elections ever since the country’s independence in 1975! As long as nothing is done to restore the individual freedoms and rights the political discontent will remain; it is hard to see some of the vultures supposedly helping Mozambique would push for meaningful political change since they too have no democratic values worth a spit!
@ The News Hawks
ReplyDelete“It was the spark that lit a fully loaded powder-keg that was already in existence. Metaphorically speaking, South Africa has long been a volcano that was waiting to erupt although no one knew quite when it would happen. It is to those deeper causes that South Africa must look at this moment, instead of focusing on the actions of Zuma and his supporters.
For so long, the world has held South Africa as a gold standard for the African region, a model to be emulated by others. When the clique of the richest countries in the world meets to decide the course of world affairs, South Africa is invited to sit at the table aiding and abetting the sense of exceptionalism. Its constitution is widely celebrated as progressive.
The West casts it as a kind of watchdog that must rein in the delinquents around it like Zimbabwe. But that is a role that, aware of its insecurities and structural weaknesses, South Africa has largely been reluctant to exercise. Contrary to Western perceptions, and despite efforts to paint it as a Big Brother, South Africa is not different from its African peers in terms of challenges that a post-colonial state faces.
It might lay claim to being the most sophisticated economy on the continent, but this hides the sad reality that a significant part of it is in a few hands, the beneficiaries of historical advantage and few black elites who managed to sneak to the top table.”
This is nonsense, SA is different from the other African countries notable Zimbabwe in that there is rule of law in SA and the country’s democratic institutions are strong. Jacob Zuma was confident he is above the law and so too were his supporters, they vowed they would make SA ungovernable. Zuma is in jail, where he belongs for contempt of court and lawlessness by supporters have fizzled out and those responsible are being rounded up and will soon join Zuma in prison.
In Zimbabwe, as with most of Africa, the ruling elite are a law unto themselves. When Didymus Mutasa threaten to challenge his expulsion from Zanu PF in 2014; Mugabe remarked “In his court?” And High Court Judge, George Chiweshe ruled the November 2017 military coup was “legal, justified and constitutional”; only a captured judiciary would give such a pathetic ruling!
For anyone to disregard these historic facts and place SA in the same basket as just another Zimbabwe beggars belief! Only a village idiot would do such a thing.
Alex Magaisa was Morgan Tsvangirai’s Chief Adviser, the MDC leader during the GNU. MDC failed to implement even one token democratic reform designed to dismantle the dictatorship and thus make Zimbabwe’s captured judiciary and other state institution more democratic.
Magaisa and the rest of the MDC leaders have never regretted failing to implement even one reform, could it be that they believed rule of law and democracy were not for African countries and even trying to do so was a waste of time.
The rioting and looting in SA has proven, as far as Magaisa is concerned, that SA’s democratic experiment is died and buried. Of course, that is foolish, the rule of law has prevailed and SA’s democracy was tested and passed with flying colours.
A precedence has been set, no one is above the law and even the hardcore Zanu PF thugs know this will reverberate across the Limpopo River and beyond. Mnangagwa and company have good reasons to be worried; they know a military coup is not constitutional and one of these fine days they may well be called upon to account for the coup and many, many other things!
@ Steven Nyoni
ReplyDelete“You township idiots stop insulting villagers by saying village idiot. We don't complain when you people from township drink sewage water. You are not special in this world we all are equal before the sun.”
I totally agree with you there that most our towns and cities are nothing more than townships.
For someone like me who grew up in the rural areas, the township is wherever there was one or more shops selling everything from food, clothing, nails, etc. The shop owner and his family were part ad parcel of the village community, and it would have been very presumptuous for them to think of themselves as anything else.
Now if Zimbabwe’s towns and cities have been reduced to townships, as you have rightly pointed out, in which the people drink sewage water; I would say Zimbabwe is now just one big stone age village thanks to the 40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption under this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime.
I have decided to call the Zanu PF buffoons who have landed the nation in this mess and all those naïve and gullible individuals who continue to believe in the regime’s lies village idiots; I have no problem with you calling them township idiots, call them what you want. I am just disappointed that you only picked on what to call the Zanu PF buffoons and had nothing to say about tragic human suffering and deaths their buffoonery is causing.
You, me and everyone with half a working brain out there should be focusing all our time, energy and sinew on how to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and end this curse of bad governance that has destroyed the economy and the nation. To be arguing about whether we should call the buffoons village idiots or township idiots is as foolish as someone dithering about what shirt to wear with the house on fire!
With people like you, with a propensity to ignore the big issues whilst making mountains out of mole-hills; it is little wonder the country is Banana Republic. There are no village idiots in the Banana Republic of Zimbabwe, none; only township idiots – Nyoni is very pleased, “Moyo mbembe sedivi redoto!” as one would say in Shona!
Poor, poor, Zimbabwe what hope is there of ever getting out of this mess when we have more than our fair share of village idiots and, worst of all, they have the vote!
@Chuma
ReplyDelete“Mwonzora is oblivious of the fact that he was a full ZUM member, when Morgan Tsvangirai, Nelson Chamisa and others converged to form a people’s vehicle against dictatorship, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999.
One wonders how does one end up claiming ownership of a movement he does not know how it was birthed.”
Well, since you claim to know so much about MDC then please tell the nation what democratic changes the party has even brought in all its 21 years, 5 of which in the GNU, on the national political centre stage. Not even one change. Not a sausage!
Ever since the 2008 to 2013 GNU, MDC has all but completely abandon the fight for democratic change and free and fair elections; the party has been participating in flawed elections giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy all for the sake of a few gravy train seats Zanu PF has been giving away as bait.
Chamisa and the rest in MDC A are hearing up to participate in the 2023 elections although it is already clear the elections have been rigged; Zanu PF is denying 3 million plus Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote, that is more than the 2.4 million Mnangagwa claims voted for him in 2018. How can an election in which more voters than the winning candidate claims voted for him be anything other than a farce! Only village idiots would participate in such a totally meaningless process especially when doing so will give the vote rigging thugs legitimacy but that is exactly what the MDC leaders have been doing all these years and are itching to do in 2023!
Yes Mwonzora is a village idiot but so too is Chamisa and the rest of the MDC leaders! You should have seen MDC leaders for whom they really are by now, if you only had a brain!
Chief director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Maxwell Hove, said once passed, the law will allow health care workers to strike for only three days per fortnight.
ReplyDelete“Healthcare workers will not be able to go on strike for more than three days and will stay at work for a minimum of two weeks before the law allows them go on another three-day strike,” said Dr Hove.
“In each case no strike can go beyond three days and emergencies will also be covered during every strike”.
The amendments seek to replace the Health Services Board with an independent commission — the Health Services Commission — which will among other things create grades in the health service and fix conditions of service for doctors and nurses.
Zanu PF has failed to revive the nation’s economy and in a desperate effort to stop the run away inflation has decided to allocate the little wealth generated to the ruling elite, their appetite is insatiable and so continue to demand the lion’s share, then pay the securocrats for fear of another military coup and the bread-crumbs left-over pay the teachers, nurses and everyone else.
Decades of being paid breadcrumbs has had its toll, the country’s education and health care services have all but collapsed because many of the teachers and nurses have left the profession or the country because they could not live on the slave wages. Those still in the profession are there because they cannot find any alternative employment and/or cannot leave the country.
Instead of focusing on reviving the nation’s economy by accepting Zanu PF has failed and thus the need for democratic reforms to end the curse of bad governance; the regime is using all the dirty tricks in the book to hang on to power. The new law is designed to turn the screw on the nurses, to force they continue working for the slave wages. This will only make a bad situation even worse, this is just flogging a donkey that cannot get up much less carry any load.
Speak to anyone in Zimbabwe and they will tell you health care centres are being overwhelmed by sick people and funeral parlours being overwhelming by the dead. The extras will be covid-19 related cases. And yet the official covid-19 cases and 617 (a fraction would require hospital treatment) and 44 deaths, 3 094 deaths in total since the outbreak. It is blatantly obvious that the official figures are not a true reflection of the reality on the ground.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing Zimbabwe is not testing anyway near enough to keep track on the virus. During the December 2020 wave in both SA and Zimbabwe; whilst SA was carrying out over 44 000 test per day, Zimbabwe with 1/4 SA's population should have been doing over 11 000 tests per day was doing 1 500 tests. It should be noted the country is still doing less than 5 000 tests per day today.
The regime has been boasting about the country's, official, low covid-19 cases and deaths; this is such a hollow boast based on a calculated lie and, worst of all, that the nation is paying dearly for the lie! By failing to test and keeping track on the virus the country is not doing the obvious things such as isolating those with the virus and so helping it spread far and wide and fast.
As the nation mourn and bury our died we must never forget that many lives could have been served if only the country carried out more tests. We know Zanu PF is not testing for the virus to hide the regime's blundering incompetence in the handling of the pandemic. We are conniving with the regime in falsifying the covid-19 figures and in the death of those whose lives would have been saved if the truth was valued above an empty boast!
The WHO said an 80 percent average increase in Covid-19 cases was recorded over the past four weeks in five of the health agency’s six regions, a jump largely fuelled by the fast-spreading Delta variant.
ReplyDeleteFirst detected in India, the strain has now reached 132 countries and territories.
“Delta is a warning: it’s a warning that the virus is evolving but it is also a call to action that we need to move now before more dangerous variants emerge,” the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a news conference.
According to a leaked document by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, a review of findings from other countries showed that while the original SARS-CoV-2 was as contagious as the common cold, each person with Delta infects on average eight others, making it as transmissible as chickenpox but still less than measles.
Nanjing cluster
In China, the current outbreak is geographically the largest to hit the country in several months, challenging its early success in curbing the pandemic within its borders.
More than 260 infections nationwide have been linked to a cluster in Nanjing city in eastern Jiangsu province, where nine cabin cleaners at an international airport tested positive on July 20.
Hundreds of thousands have already been locked down in the province, while Nanjing has tested all 9.2 million residents twice.
The Chinese vaccines are not as effective against the original corona virus SARS-Cov-2 as the European or American vaccines but are clearly proving to be even less effective against the Delta variant. Countries like Zimbabwe which have relied on the Chinese vaccines must review their vaccination strategy. It is ironic that a few months ago Zimbabwe was offered 2 million doses of the American vaccine, Johnson and Johnson, and the country did not take up the offer.
The only sure way to contain this corona virus is through vaccination particularly for a nation like Zimbabwe that has no economic resources to do anything else.
The blundering incompetence with which Zanu PF has handled the corona virus pandemic, and the storm is not yet over, is causing serious economic disruption, human suffering and deaths. The regime has falsified the nation’s covid-19 cases and deaths to hide its blundering incompetence a decision that has helped the virus spread far and wide and fast.
Zimbabwe must pull all the stops to buy the European and or American vaccines and vaccinate the target herd immunity BY END OF THIS YEAR, in five months’ time. Zimbabwe has the money to pay for these vaccines; the country is losing US$1.2 billion per year is smuggled gold alone, it is high time Mnangagwa honoured his “zero tolerance to corruption” promise!