Thursday 21 November 2019

By firing doctors Zanu PF delivered coup de grace on health service and, more significantly, on Zanu PF itself! W Mukori


From November 2017 to July 2018 Mnangagwa had his party thugs, the rogue war veterans, the Police, Army and CIO on the leash. He did not want to see any violence because he wanted to claim the “2018 elections were the freest and fairest in Zimbabwe history!” 

On 1st August 2018, two days after the voting was done but before the election results were out; the regime unleashed its dogs of violence with chilling results. Zanu PF had planned to unleash the wanton violence as soon as the elections were over as one after another government official’s testimony during the Motlanthe Commission showed. 

Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2018 elections, contrary to the regime’s promise to hold free, fair and credible elections. The party feared that the people would protest another rigged elections and Mnangagwa was ready and determined to ruthlessly silence all dissent. He gave the “to shoot to kill” order. 

7 civilians were shot dead on 1st August 2018 and hundreds injured! 

Zanu PF has always relied on wanton violence as the most potent tool in establishing and retaining the de fact one-party dictatorship. After the eight months of no violence the regime feels it has earned enough brownie points for it to now use violence with no constrains. None!

“Those who we fought during the liberation struggle, the whites, are still fighting so they can claim power again … Our enemies are not resting!” Mnangagwa told a Zanu PF rally in Mwenezi, a few weeks after the January 2019 petrol price protests.

17 civilians were shot dead following yet another “Shoot to kill!” order. Hundreds were injured and hundreds of thousands raped and/or arrested in the orgy of violence that followed, speared headed by the Army and Police.

“We don’t want violence, so I said soldiers go and silence these people. They were silenced. Protestors, legion —a multitude of demons— sort them out! We will crush our enemies, and they are being crushed!” boasted Mnangagwa.

Zimbabwe’s worsening economic situation is making the Zanu PF regime jumpy! Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” has failed to attract any foreign and local investors. It is all but dead in the water.

President Mnangagwa had put so much faith in his Minister of Finance, his Cambridge University trained blue eyed boy, Professor Mthuli Ncube, reviving the country’s economy. His 600 page Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) was more froth and no beer. Minister Ncube was cocksure the IMF, WB and other international institutions would be bowled over and bankroll the programme. They were not impressed and refused to give even one dollar! 

Unemployment has remained a nauseating 90% plus. Worse still, Minister Ncube’s ill-advised economic policies have reignited the hyperinflation scourge. In the last year inflation has surged from single digit to 400%. For months, Minister Ncube has stubbornly maintained that inflation will fall to below 10% by end of the year. Two weeks ago, the regime finally admitted that was not going to happen. 

“The failures have been around inflation. We are out of the inflation target and we are also out of our reserve money target," admitted George Guvamatanga, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

"When we came up with the TSP we did not factor in the drought, we still believed that we would have a good season.” Just a feeble excuse, of course.

The regime’s firing of the doctors and nurses was the coup de grace on the country’s health care services that had all but collapsed after decades of poor funding. The health workers were fired for going on strike demanding a living wage. It was a symbolic act in that the US$ 40 per month doctor’s pay did not cover transport cost let alone food and accommodation. Teachers and health workers have been complained of “incapacity” wages, but no one listened. 

The only public workers paid a living wage are the Police, Army, CIO and the ruling elite, as last week’s skewed national budget showed. The Police and Army are getting $32 billion and $25 billion respectively compared to $18 billion for Health. Health and Education rarely ever get more than 40% of their allocation whilst the Police, Army and CIO always get their full budget allocation and more. The latter have other surreptitious sources of income such as the diamond concessions and the all too familiar bribes.

"People complain about soldiers this and that, but let me tell you, if we do not have peace we will have huge problems,” explained Minister Ncube.

"It's very important that we should make sure that the security cluster is well funded, that soldiers have a decent meal, three meals a day, as well as the police.”

Nothing exemplifies this Zanu PF government’s breathtaking incompetence than its failure to provide something as basic and fundamental as health care and education. The reality of video a referral hospital like Parerenyatwa with no doctors, no nurses, no drugs and no patience is shocking. What it means is that hundreds of thousands of people out there are suffering and hundreds are dying unnecessarily of even the most simple and curable aliments. 

A government that cannot provide even the most basic health care has no reason to be in office. 

This Zanu PF government knows it is now irrelevant that its iron grip on power is slipping away. The regime is resorting more and more to violence in its desperate effort to hang on to power. There will be more of the  wanton violence of 1st August 2018, January 2019 and more recently the unprovoked violence against MDC supporter on 19 November 2019 and it is set to get worse. 

Zimbabweans must now unity in demanding that this Zanu PF regime step down. Those calling for the formation of a GNU in which Zanu PF is to play a part are wasting the nation time because Zanu PF is beyond the pale! 

4 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Munyira

The government of Zimbabwe has no intentions to reform as shown by the most barbaric, inhuman and degrading treatment of MDC supporters that were gathered outside harvest house in Harare yesterday. Their right of freedom of assembly has been violently wiped off by the unprovoked police who mercilessly beat up people. The government of Zimbabwe is at war with it's unarmed citizens who are surviving on one meal a day. The gathering was non violent and there was no need to beat people until they break legs.

Zanu PF has failed to deliver any meaningful economic recovery and the pressure on the regime to admit failure and step down is increasing. The only thing the regime can do now to hang on to power is to resort to the old, tried and trusted brute force! This is not solving anything because as the economic meltdown gets worse the pressure from the long suffering people will only go up yet another gear.

History tells us that the people are not going to suffer and die quietly like sheep in a slaughter house and so no amount of brutal force is going to stop the people demanding change.

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Charamba
“Did you know know? It’s not fortuitous that MDC-A’s Chamisa set his HONA provocation yesterday, a day before the resumption of Zim/EU higher level talks set for today, 21st November, 2019, and that America which is opposed to these talks has been swift with its one-sided condemnation…of the illegal gathering, obstructive demonstrations by opposition. However you translate HONA [dry, meatless bone; or simply behold], MDC-A is hell-bent on wrecking re-engagement efforts through contrived political spectacle [behold!] to ensure sterile outcome [dry bone!].”

Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” is died in the water and now the economic meltdown is get worse and worse as shown by the soaring hyperinflation. Health care and education have all but totally collapsed as can be seen by the absence of doctors and teachers from their posts. Zanu PF is now resorting to the use of brute violence to hang on to power.

Everyone could see that the Police was using violence without being provoked! Zanu PF is just the bad wolf blaming the lamb down stream of mudding its drinking water.

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ MDC UK
The use of brutal force is something that must be condemned unreservedly the more so when it is used on innocent, defenceless civilians with no provocation!

“We implore the UN, AU, EU and all other International bodies to reprimand the Mnangagwa administration for not paying attention to the dictates of the UNDHR and other international statutes guaranteeing people’s fundamental freedoms,” you said.

You have clearly forgot that organisations like the EU condemned last year’s elections and therefore consider this Zanu PF regime as illegitimate. The pressure on Zanu PF would have been immediate if MDC and the other opposition parties had not given the regime legitimacy by participating in the flawed elections.

MDC leaders are the ones propping up this Zanu PF regime and therefore before you start appealing to outsiders for help you should appeal to Chamisa, Biti and all the other MDC leaders who are selling-out!

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Muzamhindo
The sight of hospitals without doctors, nurses, medicine and patients is a sorry sight when one knows that there are hundreds of thousands of sick and dying people out there. The sick and dying are not going to hospital for treatment because the country’s health care services is dead - there are no doctors, no nurses and no drugs.

“Honestly what is Mnangagwa doing to resolve the crisis? I went through the budget statement, I’m not sure who drafted the statement, budget allocating 88 Million to a non -existing looting facility called ” POLAD” is extremely worry some. Is Polad an arm of the state? Recently the failed project, anti -sanction march gobbled over 4 Million with university students scrambling for chicken slice left overs.”

Nothing that this Zanu PF government does surprises me any more; this is a regime that has gone beyond the pale. Zimbabweans must demand the removal of this illegitimate regime now because with each day it remains in office the nation is losing hundreds of innocent lives that would have been easily saved! HUNDREDS!