Former Minister of Education Sports and
Culture, David Coltart said that it was thanks to President Mugabe that
Bulawayo was hosting the African Union Sports Council Region Five Under-20
Games to the city. The games are set for 4 to 15 December 2014 and government
has already set aside $14 million to pay for the games. What was really
revealing here was the decision was made!
"After arguing the case for Bulawayo, it
was clear to me that I was losing the argument because an overwhelming majority
were against it coming to Bulawayo, including certain heavyweights, and I
assumed that it was a lost cause. I said as much and it was then that President
Mugabe intervened for the first time saying that I needed to be bolder in
advancing my argument and that he agreed it should be held in Bulawayo. The
moment he disclosed his hand all the opposition coming from a few Zanu-PF
heavyweights evaporated and a final decision was made to hold it in Bulawayo,"
said Coltart in his statement.
Putting aside the merits or demerits of the
matter at issue here; it is disheartening to note the complete arbitrary way
the decision to hold the games in Bulawayo was made. A decision costing $14
million is an important decision and therefore should not have been an
arbitrary one. From Mr Coltart’s statement, Mugabe did not advance any
arguments one way or the other, the moment he disclosed his hand all opposition
“evaporated”.
A few weeks ago Rugare Gumbo, Zanu PF
spokesman, gave us an insight into how Mugabe is regarded by his fellow Zanu PF
leaders.
“Unoda kuti ndipikise zvarehwa nevakuru? Zvinenge zvataurwa nevakuru
hazvipikiswe. (Do you want me to dispute a position taken by higher offices?
What high offices say stands),” said Zanu PF party spokesman Rugare Gumbo.
He was responding to the question that had dogged Zimbabwe politics; why
Mugabe had managed to parachute his wife, Grace, into the women league, central
committee and politburo leadership positions in direct violation of Zanu PF’s
party rule forbidding anyone taking up any leadership position unless they have
held a provincial position for at least 15 years first. Grace has never held
any party position until now.
In a health democracy there should be a health
debate in cabinet and parliament so that all aspect of the matters affecting
the nation are thoroughly reviewed from all possible angles. It is this lack of
meaningful debate and discussion that explains why the country has pursued some
really stupid policies.
There could not have been an serious debate in
government before the regime let lose the then governor of the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono, into his money printing scheme, for example. A serious
debate would have revealed that the scheme would fuel inflation and it would
have been shelved long before inflation soared to the nauseating height of 500
billion per cent!
It is this “Zvinenge
zvataurwa nevakuru hazvipikiswe” mentality that has
turned Zanu PF into a de facto one-party
dictatorship and then into something a lot worse – a one-man dictatorship. When
the truth of the country’s history of the last 34 years comes to be told it
should not be surprising that key decisions like the plundering of the diamonds
in Marange or the Gukurahundi massacres were all largely the dictate of a few
individuals without any meaningful peer review.
When Zimbabwe gained her independence on 18
April 1980 the nation was euphoric with excitement to see the end of the
nightmare of the civil war that had turned the lives of all upside down causing
so much suffering and the deaths of over 300 000. The euphoria was made a
double dose because the event closed one door and opened another; the door into
a bright tomorrow of freedom, liberty and economic prosperity for all.
In 1980 Zimbabweans were confidence the nation
would avoid the pitfalls of greed, incompetence and love of power that many
other African countries that had attained their independence before us had
fallen into turning their dreams of building justice and prosperous nations
into the nightmare. And yet today
Zimbabwe’s economy is in ruins; the economy shrunk a staggering 84% in the
six-year period 2002 to 2008 alone and has never to recover. A recent UNICEF
report said 2 million of our people are living in abject poverty.
Zanu PF has ridden roughshod over the people
dream of freedom and liberty denying them basic rights like the right to a free
vote and even the right to life. In 34 years the party has murdered over 30 000
innocent Zimbabweans in cold blood to establish and maintain this de facto Zanu
PF dictatorship. In a dictatorship it is the will of those in power that
matter; the rule of law counts for nothing.
The rule of law is the only guarantee of
freedom, liberty human rights and economic prosperity. Whilst there is rule of
law nations have prospered; remove it and nations have suffered. Zimbabwe’s
spectacular political and economic decline since independence can be attributed
the disregard of the country’s democratic constitution by Zanu PF and Mugabe to
put the party and the tyrant above the rule of law.
We need to restore the basic tenets of
democratic accountability at all levels of public life: starting at the top,
cabinet carry out its duty of thoroughly digest government policies in
meaningful debates and hold the president to account, and stop the current
practice of rubber stamping his wishes. MPs must use the special parliamentary
powers, such as the power to call upon anyone to testify under oath, to ensure
that no stone is left unturned in the search for what is in the best interests
of the nation and it is their duty to hold the executive to account. It is the
duty of the electorate to hold the executive and all public officials to
account through free, fair and credible elections.
We must restore the notion that Zimbabwe will
uphold rule of law at all times and to never again be ruled by the whim of a
dictator.
5 comments:
The Zimbabwean government is shaking down its own citizens for cash because there are no foreign donors or investors willing to cough up – and it is poor people who are feeling the brunt.
With no external budgetary support and the country increasingly importing more than it exports, citizens have become the government’s target as a source of income.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said his biggest challenge was to “raise additional revenue to finance non-discretionary expenditure”, and has increased excise duty on diesel and petrol.
At his mid-term fiscal policy review last week he announced a range of new taxes and levies on goods such as beverages, blankets, imported soap and furniture.
Mugabe has been the Artful Dodger of Zimbabwe politics; he has managed to outwit his fellow Zanu PF leaders into following him even when it was clear his leadership was ruin-ing the nation and even when he was shedding the blood of innocent Zimbabweans by their tens of thousands. How he managed to talk Tsvangirai and his MDC friends into do-ing nothing about implementing the reforms for five years is a measure of just how cun-ning Mugabe is. The one thing that has remained unmoved and untouched by all Mugabe’s cunning is the economy.
34 years of mismanagement and corruption have taken a heavy toll on the national economy. Over the years Mugabe has used his cunning to deny these were a problem allowing them to grow and spread and now the flock has come home to roost. With ad-dress these underlying problem the national economy had no chance of recovery that much was obvious; there was nothing even Artful Dodger could do to rig economic recovery that much is now obvious too.
Mark my words; the economic meltdown will be the undoing of Mugabe and Zanu PF.
@hilly 1963
The economic meltdown will force us Zimbabweans to overcome our fear of the tyrant because the eco-nomic hardship will be more frightful than Mugabe. After a few nights with nothing to eat; Zimbabweans will be forced to snap out of their sloth-like slumber. If it does not work then the screw will be turned one turn at a time to a few weeks and so on until they wake-up.
It is not that Zimbabwe is a poor country it is a very rich country ruled by some of the most incompetent, corrupt and ruthless tyrants with an electorate that is just too lazy to think or act even in their own interests even when their very lives are on the line!
@Kwangu Liwewe
The most important issue to come out of the interview was the admission by Tendai Biti that MDC failed to implement not even one of the democratic reforms agreed in the GPA as necessary for free, fair and credible elections. MDC have five years to implement the reforms which means Tsvangirai’s narrative that the MDC concentrated in stabilizing the economy is but a feeble excuse because the party had plenty of time to address the reforms if it had so wished.
MDC compounded their five year failure to implement the reforms by participating in the elections with no re-forms against the advice of SADC and Donors, as Biti has admitted.
There are only two reason why MDC failed to implement the reforms and then refused to listen to advice not to take part in the elections; one, they are corrupt. As SADC Heads said in sheer frustration with MDC leaders once in power, they “were enjoying themselves and forgot why they were there”.
Two and more significantly, MDC leaders should have realized the critical importance of the reforms in deliver-ing free, fair and credible elections they failure to do so showed just how breathtakingly incompetent they are. MDC’s mistake here is comparable to former British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” appeasement of Adolf Hitler; it is irredeemable! Like Chamberlain, these MDC leaders should have resigned the very fact that they are carrying on as if nothing happened only serves to underline their failure to comprehend the seriousness of their betrayal of the people and the cause to end the Zanu PF dictatorship!
After 34 years of hoodwinking his fellow Zanu PF leaders into following him blindly and five years of doing the same thing to Tsvangirai and his MDC lot Mugabe was really beginning to believe he was invincible. Sadly the 34 years of misrule has created a economic monster that is now proving his undoing.
Mugabe cannot rig economic recovery and the grim choice before him now is to step down or be forced out of power!
The International Monetary Fund said Zimbabwe must pay $142 million in overdue payments to be eligible for more credit, a task the country’s Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said will be hard to do without “fresh money.”
“We haven’t been able to have the capacity to honour our obligations,” said Chinamasa. “We’re unable to access fresh money and we’ve engaged the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank. The Bretton Woods institutions should help us nurture and nurse this economy back to life, back to what it used to be, and not sit on the sidelines and watch us collapse.”
This regime has no way out of this mess except to resign and restore this nation to democratic rule!
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