SADC is set to
meet this August in Victoria Falls when Mugabe will take over as chairman of
the regional body. Some people are questioning Mugabe’s suitability hold this position given Zimbabwe’s
economic melt-down made worse by the tyrant's lack of legitimacy.
All the economic
signs are there to prove the Zimbabwe economy is in serious trouble; more companies
have closed sending unemployment to the nauseating rate of 90%, the government
so broke it has been forced to release early hundreds of prisoners, for example,
or see them starve to death because there no money to feed them.
Ever since Mugabe blatantly rigged the 2013 elections the much needed foreign investors and the West immediately released the country would not be returning to the rule of law as long as Zanu PF remained in power. They have voted with their foot by staying away from Zimbabwe and refusing to invest or grant loans to the regime.
Zanu PF's own flagship $27b economic recovery plan, ZimAsset, in now dead. The plan hope Zimbabweans in the diaspora would buy $2b of government bonds. The regime was hoping to cash in on the $1.6b a year Zimbabweans have been sending back to help their families.
The economic collapse means Zimbabweans back home are even more dependent on the diaspora dollar to need their basic requirements. What good is a government bond to someone who is starving? Even if some Zimbabweans had wished to help; the regime had just refused the people in the diaspora a vote but is now asking for their money! Even those who did not have the spare cash to buy the bonds joined in in giving Mugabe and Chinamasa the middle finger!
Mugabe was sure the Chinese would bankroll ZimAsset to the tune of $30 b but has since revised the figure downwards to $10b, $3b, $400m and a few weeks ago the Chinese announced that they will not contribute a penny.
Mugabe took the tough decision to acknowledge corruption was rampant and to cap the salaries of CEO of government controlled / owned institutions like PSMAS, ZBC, City Councils, etc. shows the tyrant is aware of the seriousness of the economic crisis. Corruption is still rampant in the form of scandalous high salaries and allowances for high ranking government officials in the Police, Army, judiciary and all other government departments. He did not dare touch them - not whilst he continued to squander $10 m on his daughter's wedding!
So the signs of economic collapse are there but so too are the signs that the regime is not doing anything to stop the collapse. Even big hospitals like Parerenyatwa are going for a week without something as basic as running water.
The shortage of clean drinking water is already being felt; diarrhea is responsible for 10% of deaths of children under age 10. In 2008-2009, cholera swept the country, killing more than 4,000 people and bringing disease to over 100,000.
Ever since Mugabe blatantly rigged the 2013 elections the much needed foreign investors and the West immediately released the country would not be returning to the rule of law as long as Zanu PF remained in power. They have voted with their foot by staying away from Zimbabwe and refusing to invest or grant loans to the regime.
Zanu PF's own flagship $27b economic recovery plan, ZimAsset, in now dead. The plan hope Zimbabweans in the diaspora would buy $2b of government bonds. The regime was hoping to cash in on the $1.6b a year Zimbabweans have been sending back to help their families.
The economic collapse means Zimbabweans back home are even more dependent on the diaspora dollar to need their basic requirements. What good is a government bond to someone who is starving? Even if some Zimbabweans had wished to help; the regime had just refused the people in the diaspora a vote but is now asking for their money! Even those who did not have the spare cash to buy the bonds joined in in giving Mugabe and Chinamasa the middle finger!
Mugabe was sure the Chinese would bankroll ZimAsset to the tune of $30 b but has since revised the figure downwards to $10b, $3b, $400m and a few weeks ago the Chinese announced that they will not contribute a penny.
Mugabe took the tough decision to acknowledge corruption was rampant and to cap the salaries of CEO of government controlled / owned institutions like PSMAS, ZBC, City Councils, etc. shows the tyrant is aware of the seriousness of the economic crisis. Corruption is still rampant in the form of scandalous high salaries and allowances for high ranking government officials in the Police, Army, judiciary and all other government departments. He did not dare touch them - not whilst he continued to squander $10 m on his daughter's wedding!
So the signs of economic collapse are there but so too are the signs that the regime is not doing anything to stop the collapse. Even big hospitals like Parerenyatwa are going for a week without something as basic as running water.
The shortage of clean drinking water is already being felt; diarrhea is responsible for 10% of deaths of children under age 10. In 2008-2009, cholera swept the country, killing more than 4,000 people and bringing disease to over 100,000.
The situation
cannot go on; two things are now certain to happen as a result of the economic
collapse, either the people will riot in protest or there health time-bomb
caused by the water shortage is going to finally explode killing hundreds of
thousands.
It is important to
realize that regards of all the evidence that Mugabe has been a total failure. The
proof that it was the rampant corruption that has cause the economic collapse
and not the sanctions as he claimed, the self-evidence that he is helpless to
stop the rot and the dire consequence of letting this situation continue;
Mugabe is not going to relinquish power. It is not in the nature of tyrant to
give up power willingly.
The only way to
end Zimbabwe’s economic problems and defuse all health and social time-bombs it
is seating on is for Mugabe to go and end his illegitimate rule so there can be
free, fair and credible elections. As long as there is this illegitimate regime
in Harare, the country’s isolation with continue.
So yes, Mugabe is
preparing for the SADC meeting and to taking over as chairman of the regional
block because regardless how poorly the economy performs, how much Zimbabweans
do not want him as president, etc. he is going to remain president, period.
5 comments:
“When you have monarchical tendencies, when you have conflation of State and party how do you talk about free and meaningful elections? It’s a non-starter," said Ibbo Mandaza. I would agree with that although he is stating the obvious.
“In this situation, it means national institutions become compromised including ZEC notwithstanding the very professional people within it. It’s very difficult in the current atmosphere to be non-partisan.” He said in the next breath. Well that is nonsense; how can the person who has become compromised and behaves in a partisan manner still be said to be professional.
The role ZEC has played in the 2013 defies logic to the point the com-missioners are as guilty of the vote rigging and high treason as Mugabe and the other Joint Operation Command (JOC) members themselves. JOC planed the vote rigging and supervised the implementation of the plan. ZEC has played its role in cover up and glossing over what happened.
Zimbabwe has had the great misfortune of having opinion makers like Ibbo Mandaza whose intellectual prowess is dodgy, to say the least! So instead of shedding the much needed light on the issue(s) of the day they have produced the choking smoke of confusion.
@ New Zimbabwean
Where will that evidence get, given that Mugabe controls the Police judiciary, media, everything?
What you should know is that there will be a judiciary investigation to uncover how the elections were rigged, who did what, how much they were paid down to the names of all the youths bussed around to vote. Mugabe claims he did not rig the elections, many people believe that he did. The investigation will exonerate him if he did not rig the elections.
If the investigation concludes that the elections were rigged then the most severe punishment will be dished out to all the guilty parties! Zimbabwe’s future elections will be free, fair and credible and what better way of ensuring this is so than by punishing those who rigged the last elections.
Vote rigging is a serious crime, it is high treason, and it must be treated with the fitting seriousness and decorum the matter deserves. And that is exactly what is going to happen.
Bilateral cooperation between Zimbabwe and France is set to resume Novem-ber, French envoy to Zimbabwe, Laurent Delahousse said.
Other countries too have started to give money to Zimbabwe; on Wednesday the government received a financial bail-out worth $53 million, and of this amount $35 million is funded by Australia, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Switzerland.
On Tuesday, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation gave the Zim government a grant of $9 million to boost livestock production in Matabeleland North.
Swedish gave $15 million to disburse as government Sweden’s Envoy to Zimbabwe Lars Ronnas said.
France's foreign policy in so parts of Africa like CAR has been highly praised and rightly so too. In Zimbabwe the French have blundered from pillar to post. Last time they showered Tsvangirai with honour and praise only for the MDC leader to prove in last year's elections what a buffoon he is. Tsvangirai had failed to get even one democratic reform implemented a fatal oversight that was to result in Mugabe blatantly rigging the elections to stay in power.
Re-engaging this Mugabe regime is not going to end the corruption and political repression. The money will slow down but not stop the economic melt-down. If the French believe that Mugabe is ever going to agree to meaningful democratic reforms necessary for free and fair elections then they are more naïve than I thought!
If the French are earnest about helping the people of Zimbabwe get out of the political and economic mess Mugabe land the nation, then they must help push the tyrannical regime to resign so free and fair elections can be held and a legitimate government take over. France should stop playing political games with the future of other countries!
@ Chimbwido
It is true that the leadership is taken in turns, it is Zimbabwe's turn. As for the leadership qualities, which of the SADC leaders have shown that they have any. Since you consider a corrupt and murderous tyrant a good leader "admired and emulated" by anyone; it is clear you are not competent to know the difference.
SADC leaders accepted Mugabe's rigged elections because they wanted to move on. Tobaiwa Mudede admitted to a parliamentary committee that many Zimbabweans have been applying for passports and leaving the country (to go to SA and Botswana mainly) "to escape the economic crisis facing the country." Whilst Zimbabwe's economic and political mess continue to get worse SADC cannot move on!
Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe making him illegitimate and that is the reason why the West has refused to do business with the regime. Whilst he remains head of SADC many nations will be loathed to do business with SADC. You can witter all you like, that is the reality on the ground.
@ MP Settlement Chikwinya
MP Chikwinya say Mugabe should act against corruption.
The trouble here is that MP Settle Chikwinya is naïve if not downright stupid.
Mugabe has just had a $1 m birth day bash, a week later had a $ 5 m wedding for his daughter and then the nation learnt that there two $5 m statues of the tyrant awaiting delivery from North Korea. The tyrant lives in a mansion worth a lot more than $10 m the regime tell us. Where does Chikwinya think Mugabe is getting all this money from if not corruption?
If Mugabe is the mother of all corruption; which he clearly is, then how does Chikwinya expect Mu-gabe to “bite the bullet” and take action against corruption? It does not matter how angry a cobra may be at another cobra, he or she will never ever bite the other because it knows the other will strike back even if that be the last thing it does. Mugabe cannot act against corruption because he is corrupt himself.
MP Chikwinya talks too much and it is clear his mouth is often ranting and raving long before his brain is even turned on! Indeed if the MP and his MDC friends had implemented the democratic reforms during the GNU the country would not be in this mess because Mugabe would not have rigged the elections.
MP Chikwinya please do us a favour and for once in your life, think before you open your big mouth!
Post a Comment