Last week the IMF, WB, Paris Club, AfBD and all the other international financial institutions finally confirmed that they will not give Zimbabwe the financial assistance the country needs to end the worsening economic meltdown.
“In a statement after concluding a visit to the country this week, the IMF said Zimbabwe is experiencing an economic and humanitarian crisis, with macro-economic stability a challenge,” reported New Zimbabwe in an article whose head lines screamed IMF, AfDB Give Thumbs Down To Zimbabwe’s Reforms.
The humanitarian crisis is well and truly upon us!
Bulawayo City Council has just increased its health care charges by a staggering 700%. Basic consultation fees for adults has gone from $5 to $96.41, a child above five years from $2 to $72.30 and expecting mothers pay $361.52 up from $30.
There are many ways of denying someone a product and one way is to price it beyond the individual’s economic reach. Health care is not a luxury like a month long holiday in Singapore or buying another posh car Valentine’s Day present for Mum; it is a life and death matter.
No one should ever have to be force to choose to die and yet this is what the poor in Bulawayo and across Zimbabwe are being forced to choose given the country’s worsening economic meltdown! Make no mistake about it the death rate in Zimbabwe has risen significantly in line with the worsening economic situation and it is set to get worse.
What makes Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis both heartbreaking and infuriating is that this is, largely, a man-made crisis. The economic meltdown is man-made and could have been easily avoided. Easily!
“The government that came to office following the 2018 elections adopted an agenda focused on macro-stabilisation and reforms. This was supported by a staff-monitored programme from the IMF, adopted in May 2019, but is now off-track as policy implementation has been mixed,” the IMF statement explained.
It turns out that the Zanu PF regime has been secretly printing more paper money to finance government’s humongous spending appetite. This is the root cause of the country’s run away hyperinflation which has surged from single digit a year ago to 800% plus today.
In an effort to contain inflation government has all but completely abandoned funding public welfare services such as education and health pricing them beyond the reach of the poorest in society.
Ending corruption is another long standing task which IMF was disappointed but not surprised government has failed deal with.
Of course, the IMF did not expected President Mnangagwa and his regime to stamp out corruption. He and most of his senior government and party officials are the Godfathers of corruption in Zimbabwe, as long as they remain in power they will continue to use state institutions and machinery to protect their corrupt activities.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies rigged the July 2018 elections make sure they remain in power to protect their selfish interest like corruption hence the reason the reforms are “off-track”.
By blatantly rigging the elections Mnangagwa confirmed Zimbabwe is still a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs; a badge the country earned in the late 1990s and has worn ever since.
And as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state; Zanu PF will never ever implement the economic reforms to put the country back on the recovery track and, in turn, the IMF, WB, etc. will never ever waste a single dollar fund reforms doomed to fly off the rail! Never ever.
Zanu PF got the nation into this economic mess by turning Zimbabwe into a pariah state and to rig elections to retain its iron grip on power and keep the country a pariah state. Stop Zanu PF rigging the elections and the party’s strangle hold on power will be broken.
Zanu PF is holding the nation to hostage and will not allow the implementation of democratic reforms, the pre-requisite for free, fair and credible elections.
Zanu PF leaders spear headed the fight to end white colonial rule and ever since the country attained her independence the party has denied the populous their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life.
Mnangagwa and his fellow Zanu PF cronies have paid lip service to holding free, fair and credible elections; they believe they have the right to blatantly rig the elections to secure their hold on power. They believe Zanu PF has, near as damn it, the divine right to rule Zimbabwe; the right of conquest! And we, the people, are hostage to fortune!
34% of Zimbabwe’s population now live in extreme poverty, it is single digit in the neighbouring countries, which meaning they cannot afford one decent meal a day much less other basic necessities of life such as clothes, shelter and health care. Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis is shifting from shocking numbers living in heartbreaking abject poverty into overdrive, as the numbers of people are dying unnecessarily soar!
The answer to end the humanitarian crisis is to demand the implementation of the reforms and thus end the curse of rigged elections and pariah state.
It is for us, the people of Zimbabwe, to demand the restoration of our freedoms and rights, not IMF or anyone else. We are hostage to fortune but only because we allowed Zanu PF thugs turn their tyrannical whim into a divine right.
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PARANOID Mnangagwa’s 20+ Security Motorcade Leaving Victoria Falls
We have allowed our leaders to get up on pedal so high they started to believe they are way above the rest of us mere mortals and have behaved accordingly. Mnangagwa is a man of little intellect and it is precisely for that reason that he now considers himself extra, extra special, power has got to his head he cannot think of ever giving it up.
The fact that the country is sinking into the economic abyss is something he would never attribute to his failed leadership. How can he, Mnangagwa, God Almighty's greatest gift to mankind fail!
Removing Mnangagwa and his power crazy Zanu PF cronies from office is not going to be a walk in the park, of that we can be certain!
Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga is willing to let his estranged wife Mary Mubaiwa get all their kitchen utensils, a bed and three cars in their divorce.
But he draws the line at cash that he says belongs to him – US$245,428 that is kept in Mubaiwa’s FBC Bank account.
He also wants half of Orchid Farm on Domboshava Road on the outskirts of Harare. The farm was acquired while they were married.
Chiwenga says he acquired a 3,198m² residential stand for Mubaiwa, stand no 591 Borrowdale Brooke, and three top-of-the-range vehicles – a Land Rover Discovery, a Range Rover Sport and a Ford Ranger – which he does not claim as his own and which he says can be awarded to the former model.
Chiwenga claims Mubaiwa acquired two residential properties in Tshwane, SA, and three houses in Harare’s Mount Pleasant and Vainona suburbs at an auction by KM Auctions, which is owned by her father.
She also bought two Land Rover Discovery vehicles in SA, without his knowledge or involvement, he says.
Each time ordinary Zimbabweans have a peek at the lifestyles of the country’s filthy rich ruling elite they are left speechless. No wonder the ordinary people have sunk like a stone into poverty, these guys have been suck up everything to finance their extravagant lifestyles, there real was no wealth left for even maintaining such basic institutions like hospitals and schools. The ruling elite did not need any of these local services themselves because they used the up market schools and hospitals found outside the country.
Anyone who believes Zanu PF leaders will ever implement any meaningful reforms and risk losing power and all the riches it brought to them is insane.
The EU know Zanu PF will never implement the reforms, they are only pretending to believe so, as an excuse to lifting the sanctions. EU member countries like Belgium have been itching to claim a share of Zimbabwe’s diamonds; they do not care that Zimbabwe, under Zanu PF, will never ever hold free, fair and credible elections.
THE government last night confirmed that a traveller from China had been isolated and was being tested for coronavirus (Covid-19) after being flagged by authorities, a second such case in Zimbabwe.
Details on the matter were still sketchy last night, but the Information ministry confirmed in a statement that tests on the said traveller were being conducted.
Authorities did not disclose the traveller's nationality.
"The traveller is now at Wilkins, so we are just trying to dispel suspicions. That person is not coming from Hubei (where the virus originated), but a different place and they have no symptoms, but we are just following what has to be done," said Harare City health director Prosper Chonzi.
Recently, a 27-year-old Harare woman suspected to have contracted Covid-19 after she visited Wuhan, China, was readmitted at the Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital, raising fears authorities could have prematurely discharged her.
Covid-19 outbreak will present a real doom’s day scenario for Zimbabwe because the country could not be more vulnerable!
Decades of savage financial cut to the public health care service has left the sector with very few poorly paid doctors and nurses, with no medicine, very poorly equipped and with the infrastructure in advanced stage of decay and rot.
When it has become the norm for major hospitals like Parerenyatwa and Mpilo Hospitals to run out of something as basic as painkillers and even clean running water. One can only image the sorry state of the clinics and hospitals in the country’s rural backwaters!
One only hopes that there is not even one covid-19 case in Zimbabwe. Still, this should be a wake-up call for us to finally do something to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance - the root cause of the collapsed public health care service!
CATHOLIC bishops have called for a multi-stakeholders platform to discuss the socio-economic and political crisis in the country, but ruled out the Political Actors Dialogue (Polad), a grouping of fringe political parties which performed dismally in the 2018 elections fronted by President Emmerson Mnangagwa as a platform.
This is becoming monotonous!
We all know or should know by now that the root cause of the country's economic mess is 40 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness that have earned the nation the pariah state label. The country needs financial assistance and foreign investment to kick start the comatose economy. The IMF, WB, etc. have just made it clear that they will never give Zimbabwe a single dollar in financial assistance as long as the country remains a pariah state.
If we want to end the economic meltdown then we must end the pariah state status. We must look Mnangagwa straight in the eyes and tell him he rigged the July 2018 elections landing the nation into this mess. He and and his Zanu PF regime must now step down to allow the appointment of interim administration that will implement the reforms and hold free and fair elections.
To end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance we must demand reforms and the holding of free and fair elections. Surely we do not need an all-stockholders conference to demand that!
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