War vets lucky and "grateful" for $6.4 m fees for 43 000 vs $80 m for globe-trotting for one (1). By Nomusa Garikai.

Given the country’s worsening economic meltdown it is not surprising that government is struggling to raise $6.4 million, school fees of war veterans’ 43 000 children. The fact that the regime has had no problems, at least so far, in raising $80 million for the first five months alone to pay for President Mugabe’s globe-trotting escapades, says a lot about the regime’s warped priorities. What is both shocking and disappointing is that the war veterans are themselves are going along with this charade and blissfully unaware the system is falling apart.  

"We are in the process of receiving money from Treasury as part of US$6,4 million billing per term. Some of the funds are already reflecting in our account,” Secretary for Welfare Services for War Veterans, glibly told the Sunday Mail.

"We are finalising clearing the remaining arrears for first term with schools that hold other accounts since we first dealt with account holders in banks such as POSB, Cabs and CBZ where the majority of our members are banked.


"Most parents are grateful with the work we have done so far, but we feel there is need to increase our pace so that children are not inconvenienced due to late payment of school fees. We plead with schools not to turn away children from attending lessons for non-payment of fees."

Really! Has it ever occurred to anyone of these war veterans why so many of them are now totally dependent on welfare hand-out?  Indeed they are luck to get the welfare hand-outs with unemployment a nauseating 90% millions of ordinary Zimbabweans are living in abject poverty and are getting no school fees and any State welfare assistance.

The very fact that 76% of our people are destitute is surely proof that President Mugabe and his Zanu PF regime has failed to deliver mass prosperity he has promised repeatedly throughout the years. The ordinary people did not elect this Zanu PF regime into power, President Mugabe impose the regime on the nation and the war veterans have played a major role as the tyrant’s storm troopers in this imposition. The war veterans should surely have woken up now to the reality that the de facto one-party dictatorship they helped to create has failed them and the nation at large.

Who would have thought that the nation went to war fighting to end white colonial oppression and exploitation only to become a nation of economic destitute who are denied their basic freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful free and fair vote and the right to life. To add insult to injury it is none other than the war veterans who risked all for independence who are being used by the oppressive and tyrannical regime to do its dirty of oppressing the people.

The war veterans have become the Napoleon’s dogs in Gorge Orwell his Animal Farm. The war veterans are not economically any better off than the rest of the population;  the school fees the regime is paying is no more than a bone Napoleon throw at his dogs to gnaw! People like Tapfumaneyi are clearly very pleased with the generosity of the regime!

Who would have thought being naïve and ignorant can be both a curse and a blessing; a curse in that the nation has blundered from one crisis to into the next and for 36 years have sunk deeper and deeper into poverty and hopeless despair. But because of our blinding ignorance we have remained blissfully unaware of what the alternative would have been and thus spared the heartbreak.

Chaos is not so disappointing if chaos is all one knows and expect in life! “Most parents are grateful with the work we have done so far!” Of course they will be grateful of the little mercies; they are grateful the school fees payments have not been reduced and then finally stopped; they expect it to happen and know it will happen very soon.