Today, 25 August 2015, Mugabe presented his State Of The
Nation Address (SONA) to parliament a very rare event; he gave the last one in
2007. It was short, 30 minutes long, but worse still it was a great
disappointment because he said nothing about how his regime was going to end
Zimbabwe’s serious, urgent and worsening economic meltdown.
Ever since Mugabe rigged the 31st July 2013 national
elections the national economy has taken a decided turn for the worse. Mugabe
thought he could rig economic recovery with his very ambitious $27 billion
(nearly three times the nation’s national debt) ZimAsset plan and create 2.2 million
jobs in five years, 2013 to 2018. He has since failed to get anyone, not even his
“all weather friends” the Chinese to bankroll the plan. He has failed to create
even one single job two years into the five years of the plan.
Indeed instead of creating more employment opportunities the
nation has seen more and more companies closing down and throwing even more
workers on the mountain of unemployed. In the clearest sign yet that the
economic situation is getting decidedly worse; in the last month over 20 000
workers were laid off. There are more lay-offs in the pipeline. It was this
wakeup call – so millions of Zimbabwe must have thought - that prompted Mugabe
to finally get off his backside and do something to address this national economic
crisis. The whole nation held its breath during the SONA; in expectation of a
radical change of course to get the nation out of this hell!
Of course the nation was very disappointed and disgusted to
hear Mugabe repeat the same old empty promises.
"This has seen government signing key projects with
China, covering energy, railways and telecommunication, water, mining,
agriculture, and tourism," Mugabe
said at one point. He went to China last August and signed these “mega deals”
but China has since refused to spend a single dollar on these projects until
Zimbabwe pays the outstanding debt serving repayments on the $1.5 billion debt
to China.
It was totally disheartening that Mugabe would
gloss over the worsening economic meltdown to talk of “marginal recovery”!
“This man (Mugabe) must certainly be living in another
planet!” remarked MDC-T’s Luke Tamborinyoka.
In parliament MDC MPs greeted Mugabe’s feeble speech; old age
has definitely caught up with him although he continues strenuously trying to
give the impression that he is “as fit as a fiddle”; with chants of “Zanu PF is
rotten!” The futility of their chanting may have been lost of MDC politicians
but not on the nation.
The national ship is heading straight for the dangerous rapids
and the captain is shouting “Steady she goes!” with the ice cold indifference of
one who has his rescue plan and does not care about the danger, suffering and even
deaths of everyone else on the ship. During the GNU MDC leaders had the golden
opportunity to stop Mugabe and Zanu PF rigging the elections and thus taking over
control of the ship and they wasted that chance. And now with the ship tossing
and turning dangerously in the swells and fast flowing flood; what comfort will
the nation derive from knowing Zanu PF is rotten?
No Mr Tamborinyoka, Mugabe is living on this planet, and it
was MDC leaders’ breath-taking incompetence that allowed Mugabe to rig the 2013
elections and thus extend his stay in State House. And now the whole nation is
paying dearly for MDC leaders’ betrayal because having wasted the chance during
the GNU to implement the reforms it God only knows what hell on earth the
nation will face before we finally get another chance to end Mugabe’s reign of
terror.
6 comments:
@ nekumba
You are a very confused person; Zimbabwe is not a democracy today and ZSD has nothing to do with that. Yes Mugabe is a formidable tyrant but during the GNU the country had the chance to implement the reforms and end the Zanu PF dictatorship. All MDC had to do is implement the reforms and SADC was there to help. Not even one reform was implemented because Mugabe bribed MDC to forget about the reforms.
You have completely failed to comprehend the historic facts of the GNU and hence the reason why you have failed to understand why Tsvangirai cannot be the answer to the nation's problems. ZSD members have committed themselves to ensure the people of Zimbabwe know the historic facts of what MDC did during the GNU and that we will do.
Many people are deserting MDC because they know corrupt and incompetent leaders are a curse to any cause! You clearly do not like it but ZSD is not here to do what you like or dislike, you are totally irrelevant.
@ Patrick
Ian Smith had the common sense to build a thriving economy his fault was failing to share the country's wealth fairly with the blacks and denying blacks their basic human rights. Mugabe had no common sense; he has completely destroyed the nation's economy and has denied Zimbabweans their basic human rights too. It is no surprise that when the chips were down Smith saw a way out where as Mugabe would not!
@ Kapah
Excellent!
Do you realize that 99% of the things you have said above are common sense and have been suggested many times in the last 35 years and yet have been adopted. So the first question I have to ask you then is why are you keeping, a select few of his cronies and make everything and everybody else work and fit round them?
Mugabe and his Zanu PF dictatorship must step aside; after all they rig the last elections. Zimbabwe's current crisis is economic and political as a result of decades of bad economic policies implemented by corrupt and incompetent officials who have lost political legitimacy after years of political repression and rigging elections.
Any meaningful solution to Zimbabwe's current political and economic problems has to start with restoring political legitimacy through the holding of the country's first free, fair and credible elections.
@Conrad
All this talk of Zimbabwe re-engaging with the West just Mugabe's pathetic egotistic attempts to hide his failures as a leader under the smoke screen that Washington, London and the rest of the free world are after him.
For the first twenty years Mugabe was in and out of the Washington, London, Paris, etc. like a yo-yo. When in 2000 the IMF and WB told him they were cutting all Zimbabwe's line credits because he had an insatiable appetite for spending with zero economic sense Mugabe started looking for an excuse to pick a fight with the West. He cranked up his anti-West rhetoric to full blast and he never missed an opportunity to denounce the White and the West and everything they stood for.
Mugabe has re-engaged with the European Union at least in so far as the targeted sanctions against everyone in his inner circle other than himself and his wife. For years Mugabe has made a big song and dance blaming Zimbabwe's economic collapse on the sanctions. It is now over a year since the sanctions were lifted and yet the Zimbabwe economy has continued in its nose-dive and thus proving that Zimbabwe's economic meltdown has nothing to do with the sanctions nor the re-engagement.
Zimbabwe's economic recovery will depend on the country implementing democratic reforms and holding the country's very first free, fair and credible elections; something Mugabe and Zanu PF have stubbornly refused to do. But the worsening economic situation will force them to.
The anti-white and anti-west rhetoric is but a smoke screen created by Mugabe to justify his denial of the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country under the pretext all those fighting for free, fair and credible elections are puppets of the west seeking regime change.
Putting Zimbabwe's relationship with Washington on par with Cuba or Iran will flatter Mugabe but insults the people of Cuba and Iran! With Cuba and Iran there was some ideological differences with the US, since when has breath-taking incompetence and greed been considered an ideology!
@ Patrick
Many Zimbabwe have failed to comprehend the key role MDC leaders played throughout the GNU in helping Mugabe and Zanu PF stage a political comeback after the 2008 elections. When no one, not even his fellow tyrants in SADC and AU would dare endorse the 2008 elections as free and fair Mugabe knew his bacon was fried. The GNU was meant to be a soft landing in that everyone know Mugabe would never win free, fair and credible elections.
SADC, AU and everyone else assumed MDC would implement all the reforms already agreed in the GPA, it was inconceivable to think why MDC would fail to have this done. Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and company and the rest is history!
After the shameless, reckless and selfish way Tsvangirai and the other MDC leaders betrayed the people it really beggars belief that any thinking Zimbabweans would forgive these MDC guys much less entrust them with the responsibility to implement the same democratic reforms! Of course nothing would please Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs more than to see Tsvangirai, the village idiot who bend over backwards to help him stage his political comeback, back as his main political opponent.
As long as MDC remains the main political opposition Zanu PF are certain to remain in power until "donkeys grow horns", as Simon Khaya Moyo once boasted! And the nation will get the government and opposition they rightly deserve!
What reputation did Mpoko have? How can anyone soil something that is not there? How he came up with the sum of $50 million speaks volumes of the greed that has infected our politicians! Here is a nobody who then get promoted to high office way above his level of competency and suddenly he considers himself a genius!
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