Last week Zimbabwe’s Minister of finance Patrick Chinamasa confirmed that
Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is getting completely out of hand. The regime is
now spending 97% of the collected revenue on civil servant wages alone, for
example, up from 80% last year when the aim was to reduce it to a manageable 40%.
The Minister proposed laying off thousands of civil servants, stopping
bonus payments, etc.; a desperate effort to contain public expenditure in the
face of shrinking revenue. This was not the first time the Minister has tried
to reduce public expenditure; he proposed similar measures last year but was publicly
slammed down by senior Zanu PF leaders including the President’s nephew Patrick
Zhuwao and President Mugabe himself. Minister Chinamasa was slammed down again this
time by the usual suspects.
What I have found shocking is the out pouring of heartfelt sympathy for
Chinamasa, with some even praising him; reminiscent of the Russians mourning Joseph
Stalin! When the Russian dictator Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin died in 1953 it
is said millions of Russians mourned him with the grief few had ever shown
before or since.
Joseph Stalin caused the untold suffering of hundreds of millions of his
own people and the deaths of millions more. He reportedly sent hundreds of
thousands of soldiers into battle with no weapons with instructions to find the
weapon of any who gets killed. Millions of Russians were arrested send to
labour camps or summarily killed during his reign of terror. And yet when the
tyrant died millions of Russians who were themselves or had relatives and
friends victims of his tyrannical rule shed more tears for the tyrant than
those shed for his victims.
“This year has been pretty hectic for my learned friend and former
Cabinet colleague Zimbabwe Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa,” wrote Professor
Welshman Ncube. “Patrick is a consummate politician, who in spite of the negative
public image he has in many circles, mostly justly earned for having been at
the forefront of the legal and media justification for ZANU PF's land grab
policies and the attendant attacks on the judiciary, is honest, possesses a
beautiful work ethic, loves his country and one of very few ZANU PF Ministers I
know for a fact as being uncorrupted. To this day he remains largely very poor
by ZANU PF standards because he has tried to practice honest politics.”
What a truck load of baloney!
Patrick Chinamasa is one of the Zanu PF officials who have benefited
greatly from the de facto one-party state in that he has returned his
ministerial job and all the financial and other fringe benefits that goes with
Mugabe’s gravy train political system. He has received at least one former
white owned commercial farm worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and never
paid a single penny for it. No doubt he has helped a few of his relatives
secure jobs, contracts, farms, etc.
So someone who has had a well-paid Ministerial job for 36 years (earned
by rigging elections), a large commercial farm (to gratify one’s insatiable
greed - never mind that the chaotic acquisition triggered the disastrous economic
meltdown), etc.; is still considered “very poor by Zanu PF standards”. Well by
the standards of the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have paid dearly for
having this corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship and are on the coal-face of the
90% unemployment, etc.; Minister Chinamasa is filthy rich!
By the way, Professor Welshman Ncube is one of the opposition political
leaders who was allocated a former white owned farms. Mugabe has dished out the
farms to bribe or reward those who have helped him establish and retain this
corrupt and tyrannical one-party state cum one-man dictatorship. Professor
Ncube was a senior MDC member in the GNU and, as we know, MDC did the tyrant a
great favour by kicking the democratic reforms into the tall grass. No doubt
Professor Ncube considers himself “very poor by Zanu PF standards”.
A few weeks ago Minister Patrick Chinamasa shocked the listeners when he
denied on BBC programme HardTalk that the $15 billion of diamond revenue, which
President Mugabe had admitted was “swindled”, had indeed been looted. Chinamasa
insisted the money was not looted but was instead an accounting error due to “mispricing”!
The wholesale looting of Marange and Chiadzwa diamonds is certainly one
of the worst cases of institutionalized theft of public resources. The grand
theft is taking place at the time when hundreds of Zimbabweans are dying every
week of simple illnesses like appendicitis because the country’s health delivery
service has all but collapse after decades of chronic underfunding. $15 billion
is a fortune for even the rich nations what more a country like Zimbabwe whose
collected annual revenue is $3 billion! What is worse, the grand theft is still
going on as we speak!
After President Mugabe’s confessed that the regime could not account for
the $15 billion of diamond revenue in February this year, Minister Chinamasa
and his counterpart in the ministry of Mines, Minister Chidhakwa, announced
that the whole diamond mining industry in Marange was being reorganized to end
the “mispricing”! In his budget statement last week Minister Chinamasa admitted
that industry produced less than one million carats of diamonds in the last six
months against an expectation of six million carats – proof that the regime is
failing to stop the looting!
Of course Minister Patrick Chinamasa, like so many of his fellow Zanu PF
colleagues, is a dishonest, incompetent, greedy, corrupt and despicable scum of
the earth; a curse to the nation. How anyone would describe him as “honest, possesses
a beautiful work ethic, loves his country and uncorrupted” beggars belief and speaks
volumes of the speaker!
Professor Ncube shed buckets of tears for Chinamasa’s frustrating
position of knowing what he must lay-off the thousands of civil servant to
reduce the public expenditure, for example, but being stopped by Mugabe. Ncube
did not shed a single tear for the unlucky civil servants and the hundreds of
thousands who dependent of them who are, for no fault of their own, are the
real victims here. To end his clearly frustrating situation, Professor Ncube
suggested that Chinamasa should resign or, better still, fall on his own sword
and commit hara-kiri!
1 comment:
@Mbanje
Well, why don't you address the points she raise here and stop changing the subject!
1) Are you saying Chinamasa is not corrupt and therefore Professor Ncube is right?
2) Are you saying Professor Ncube did not sell-out during the GNU by failing to get even one reform implemented?
3) Are you saying yes to 1) and/or 2) above and do not want Professor Ncube held to account because he is your leader and holding an leader to account is anathema to you and you want everyone else to do likewise?
For your information Zimbabwe Social Democrats is not died, we are not recruiting any members because we have said we will not contest in any elections in Zimbabwe until meaningful democratic reforms are implemented and there are free and fair elections. We are completely focused on making sure democratic reforms are on the national agenda.
I for one do not care whether MDC has five or ten million members, what matters is what the party has accomplished on the ground. What sticks out so far is how the party sold-out on democratic reforms.
You should be happy your party leader was one of those who benefited from the seized white farms, bribe for him kicking the reforms into the tall grass but that is all too complex for you to understand. Has Ncube ever invited you to visit his farm, he should reward for all your years of nauseating boot licking!
Of course Nomusa is right, you are a simpleton. Sadly the country has more than its fair share of idiots just like you which is why we are in this mess!
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