Police budget allocation alone exceed initial total ceiling - when you in a hole, stop digging N Garikai

When you are in a hole, stop digging because you are not doing to dig yourself out of the hole by making the hole deeper! That is obvious, common sense, but clearly not to some people; but I never thought one will need to explain this to someone like Professor Mthuli Ncube, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, no less!

“Zimbabwe’s army and police are poised to get the biggest chunks of the 2020 national budget, which finance minister Mthuli Ncube has revised to far exceed the initial ceiling of ZWL$28 billion (about US$1.77 billion or R26.1billion),” reported TimesLive.

The Army and the Police are each going to get ZWL$25 billion and ZWL$32 billion.

This must be compared and contrasted with the budgetary allocation to health, agriculture and industry which are getting ZWL$ 18, 14 and 6 billion respectively! 

The first thing to note is that the budget allocation to the Police alone exceeded the initial total ceiling set by the Minister and his staff. The total allocation to the five ministries named above alone is ZWL$ 85 billion or nearly three times the set ceiling. Of course, this is bound to fuel the country’s hyperinflation estimated at between 358% to 900%. 

The second obvious flaw is why oh why is the country spending fortune on security and pittance on health, agriculture and industry?

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

"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.”

Minister Ncube should know that ever since the country attained her independence in 1980 the country has spend disproportionately more and more resources on its bloated public sector, notably the security services. Yes this was done to placate the security personal but at the price of starving the country’s wealth generating sectors. When a nation spends more than the wealth it is generating that is the root cause of economic meltdown and price inflation.

By increasing the money supply three fold without doing anything to increase the wealth the nation generates the Minister has only stoked the hyperinflation flames!

After 39 years of kicking the can of voodoo economic policies down the road the country is running out of road. Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has pushed unemployment to the nauseating heights of 90%, basic services such as health have all but completely collapsed, etc. The country desperately need sound economic policies to revive the comatose economy and not more of the failed  voodoo economics! 

"Mnangagwa is destroying Zimbabwe just like Mugabe" say retiring UK MP - to stop him, we must be shrewd P Guramatunhu

"It has been a privilege to chair the All Party Zimbabwe Group in Parliament and speak up for that beautiful country now in the grip of @edmnangagwa destroying it just like Mugabe,” twittered retiring Labour MP Kate Hoey. 

THANK YOU KATE! 

You spoke for the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have been systematically denied the freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life by this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. 

Zimbabwe is a beautiful country with great economic potential and a hard working people. The reality on ground tells a different and sorry story because the country has had the great misfortune of being ruled by thugs.

Ever since Zimbabwe attained her independence in 1980 the country has been ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF thugs who have denies the people their freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life. The people have risked life and limb to elect MDC on the ticket they would implement the democratic reforms to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. They had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU; they failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one! And ever since the MDC leaders have participated in flawed and illegal elections for selfish political gain. 

Ms Kate Hoey, the EU, the Americans, the Canadians, the Commonwealth and many, many other observed last year’s Zimbabwe elections and they all condemned the elections as a farce. Ms Hoey argued the British government, the EU and the international community to punish the Mnangagwa regime for rigging the elections. It was none other than Zimbabwe’s own opposition politicians who undermine this call!

There is no doubt that by participating in the elections, the opposition gave the flawed and illegal elections some democratic credibility. And boy oh boy; the opposition politicians were falling over each other in their enthusiasm to contest. There were 23 contestants in the presidential race alone!

The election process was so flawed that 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote (Mnangagwa was declared the winner with 2.4 million votes)! ZEC even failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll. But none of these flaws and illegalities dumped the opposition candidates’ enthusiasm! 

MDC leaders and their fellow opposition politicians were after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait and they did not care how flawed and illegal the process happened to be. Having participated in the flawed and illegal elections, knowing all along Zanu PF would rig the elections, Chamisa and company had no choice but to accept the elections as credible. 

Yes E D Mnangagwa is destroying Zimbabwe just as Mugabe before him had done and with the active help of the corrupt and incompetent Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends! MDC leaders have been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds for over 20 years now and hence the reason Zimbabwe is still stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship.

"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves,” said Jesus.

Zimbabwe is in a real serious economic mess with unemployment a nauseating 90% and basic services like health care all but completely collapsed because of forty years of corrupt and tyrannical bad governance. To get out of the mess Zimbabweans must be shrewd to see something as obvious as MDC leaders are selling out hence the reason the party has failed to implement even one reform in the last 20 years. And it is naive to expect the party to do so now! 

Zanu PF to freeze wages and prices - foolish, prices soared 350% vs 50%. You failed, step down! P Guramatunhu

“During a post cabinet briefing held on Tuesday, Information Minister, Monica Mutsvangwa said government does not dispute the need to give a cost-of-living adjustment to workers but it was faced with various competing national demands which include payment of annual bonuses that will take a significant portion of resources,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“In addition, said Mutsvangwa, government is putting measures to "contain loss of the workers purchasing power and request worker representatives to provide three nominees to attend a Tripartite Negotiating Forum Technical Committee workshop."

"The workshop is aimed at coming up with a Social Contract that is aimed at bringing the parties to a common position.

"This may result in the freeze of incomes and prices," said Minister Mutsvangwa.

What good will it be to the worker whose salary has increased by a misery 50% in the last 12 month given that prices have surged upward by a staggering 350% in the same period. Freezing the wage and prices will be tantamount to the worker accepting a 300% wage cut! Worse still, most of the workers were being paid far below the US$650 poverty datum line to start with. 

Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections and was cocksure the party would deliver economic recovery too. Well the regime must now admit that it has failed to revive the economy and, more significantly, the party must now step down. 

By blatantly rigging last year’s elections Mnangagwa confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state ruling by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs. No one like to do business in a pariah state - have all should know this by now after all Zimbabwe’s economic nose dive has lasted these last 20 years after Mugabe confirm Zimbabwe was a pariah state. 

The only sure way to end Zimbabwe’s pariah state is for Zanu PF to step down so the nation can appoint an interim administration whose primary task would be to implement the democratic reforms leading to the holding of free, fair and credible elections. Zimbabwe needs a fresh start! 

Both Zanu PF and MDC leaders cannot be appointed in the interim administration because they were the key players in the 2008 to 2013 GNU which failed to implement even one meaningful democratic reform. Not one! 

The people of Zimbabwe have suffered and many have died since Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980 all because the country failed to establish a healthy and functional political system. The nation’s top priority right now is to end the tragic human suffering and lose of lives. 

The country has another golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the dysfunction de facto one-party dictatorship and replace it with a democratic system of government. It would be unforgivable to fail the nation once again all because we sort to appease the corrupt and tyrannical ruling elite! 

Zanu PF must step down, the party rigged last year’s elections and is, per se, illegitimate. That is not negotiable!

MDC defend MPs Vic Falls US$ 5m jaunt - will never denounce rigged elections, never ever W Mukori

There is no one more blind than he who freely choose to close their eyes to the truth and when the truth is unpalatable one physical and mental eyes are superglued shut!

“For the record, we (MPs) are employees of the people and we will continue to utilise every available space to express the feelings of ordinary Zimbabweans from Chirundu to Beitbridge and from Plumtree to Kanyemba,” argued Honourable Prosper Chapfiwa Mutseyami, MDC MP for Chikanga-Dangamvura constituency and party Chief Whip.

“This is exactly what we went to do in Victoria Falls. We are the people’s representatives. We do not shy away from any platform to articulate their concerns. We will never abdicate our key national mandate of playing the oversight role on the executive.”

Such naked conceit is unbecoming from one habitually called “honourable”! 

The MPs approved the squandering of US$ 16 million on new cars for ministers and many similar wasteful expenses at a time the nation’s health care services has all but collapsed. The suggestion that this is what the people of Zimbabwe wanted is to add insult to injury! 

If any of the MPs had objected to ministers getting new cars the Minister of Finance had only to added that MPs would also get new cars and the budget would have been approved without any further undo! 

Even if MDC MPs had made a big song and dance over an issue Zanu PF would still have managed to get it approved given the ruling party’s 2/3 majority. 

Everyone agrees that Zanu PF blatantly rigged last year’s elections to secure the 2/3 majority. Everyone also knows that Zanu PF will allow the opposition to win a few council and parliamentary seats, notably in the urban areas where the ruling party has less political leverage over the electorate. 

It is these bait seats the opposition politicians are after and would participate in the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the electoral process happen to be. Honourable Prosper Chapfiwa Mutseyami, is MDC MP for Chikanga-Dangamvura constituency, an urban constituency, one of the bait seat! But, of course, he will never ever admit his elections was anything other than a free, fair and credible election!

“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” stated the EU Zimbabwe Election Observer Mission final report.

“Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

Of course, last year’s elections were flawed and illegal and MP Mutseyami knows that. Knowing something is one thing admitting it and accepting the consequences is another matter!

The MPs had yet another no-expense spared jaunt in Vic Falls, total cost US$ 5 million, at tax payers’ expense. And there is nothing to show for it. 

“You lack one thing: go sell everything that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me,” Jesus told the rich young ruler! Luke 18:22.

MDC leaders have had many golden opportunities to implement the democratic reforms to end the de facto Zanu PF dictatorship. They have failed to implement even one reform in the party’s 20 year history because Zanu PF bribed the leaders. 

It is as hard for Prosper Chapfiwa Mutseyami and all the other opposition politicians to denounce last year’s elections as rigged and loose their MP privilege for the sake of free and fair election and good governance as it was for the rich young ruler would sell his wealth for the kingdom of God! 

Gvt splashing US$ 16m on new cars for ministers - extravagant waste, feeding blackholes continues W Mukori

“The Minister gave me an assignment about the purchase of Ministers’ vehicles and we have agreed with the supplier of vehicles. We are going to buy these vehicles through a letter of credit so that you all get them in one lot,” Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor John Mangudya has announced.

The cars will be purchased using money drawn from foreign currency generated from exports. Cost US$ 16 million! 

There is nothing wrong with buying ministers new vehicles per se just as there is nothing wrong with spending millions of dollars sending chefs out of the country for medical care or building palatial mansions for the ruling elite. What is wrong is spending US$ 16 million on new vehicles for ministers, etc. when the country is failing to buy chemical to treat water putting the health of 2 million Harare residence at risk, especially when the said ministers have cars already! 

The US$ 16 million is not the ministers money to dispose of as the wish. It is taxpayers’ money and, by right, the taxpayers should have a meaningful say in how the public funds should be used. Given a meaningful say, the public will never ever agree to spend money on this futile exercise of trying to gratify the insatiable appetite of the ruling elite. 

The ruling elite’s appetite for mansions, expensive cars, globetrotting, etc. has grown exponentially, they more the got the greater their demand for more. Worse still, whatever the nation spend on the ruling elite the nation got nothing back. The nation has never earned a single dollar from Mugabe’s palatial Blue Roof mansion. 

Zanu PF seized the former white-owned farms  to give away to party loyalists mostly resulting in the total collapse of the country’s once productive agricultural sector. We have the singular honour of starving in a land which, for all practical purposes, is the Biblical Garden of Eden! A damning testimonial to epoch of human failure.

Zimbabwe is bankrupt because for the last 39 years the nation has been trying to gratify the insatiable appetites of the nation’s ruling elite. We have been trying to fill the proverbial black hole - it takes everything and is always hungry for more and never gives anything away, not even light escapes its gravitational pull and hence the reason we cannot see it and thus the name, black hole. 

There is no doubt Zimbabwe is in serious economic trouble! Unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90%, 3/4 of the population now live on US$30 per month or less, basic services such as health care have all but completely collapsed, etc. Zimbabwe cannot afford the extravagant waste of feeding the nation’s blackhole ruling elite at the expense of the heart breaking human suffering and deaths of millions of ordinary citizens. 

Zimbabwe’s political system in which the ruling elite can spend US$16 million buying new vehicles for ministers whilst millions are forced to drink untreated water is unjust and unsustainable. 

The nation has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 39 years and counting because the people could not remove the party from office. Zanu PF has enjoyed the dictatorial carte blanche powers to rig elections and stay in power regardless of the people’s democratic wishes. 

President Mnangagwa blatantly rigged last year’s elections, he does not have the nation’s democratic mandate to govern and must step down.

If Zanu PF is allowed to stay in power until the 2023, the party will see to it that no meaningful democratic reforms are implemented and so the party will rig that year’s elections just as readily as it rigged past elections. And as long as Zanu PF remains in power the feeding of the blackhole and the tragic human suffering and deaths will continue unabated. 

Force Zanu PF to step down so we can implement the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections and we will break the cycle of rigged elections and corrupt and tyrannical governance.

"We're improving people's lives" Mthuli Ncube insist - a mirage, add hypocrite to sanctions list N Garikai

The dishonest way Zanu PF has continued to hold the sanctions debate is an outrage!

“The impact has been severe and anyone who thinks that sanctions are not harming the economy is surely not telling the truth. We have had many companies directly affected and the examples are too many to mention, like Olivine which had a loan intercepted through the United States' Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In the financial sector, banks such as Standard Chartered Bank and CBZ have lost money directly as a result of sanctions. We can go on-and-on,” Said Minister Mthuli Ncube.

This is just a foolish debate in that the minister is being penny wise but billions of dollars foolish!

There was nothing to stop Olivine getting the loan from China, South Africa and one hundred one other countries, for example. 

In 2016, former President Mugabe admitted that Zimbabwe was “swindled out of 15 billion dollars in diamond revenue alone”. When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe, he promised “zero tolerance to corruption”. The regime has failed to arrest even one swindler!

For all his boastful posturing on how he was going to get Zimbabwe’s economy back on track, Minister Ncube has taxed the poorest poor and yet he has yet to get one dollar of the billions of dollars from the swindlers. 

Government has failed to explain what happened to US$3 billion of Command Agriculture funds. Our egotistic Minister has had no comment to make on that and many other cases of gross mismanagement and corruption! None! But, surprise, surprise has many, many things to say about sanctions! 

'We're going to improve lives of our people,' says Mthuli Ncube. 

Zimbabwe has been in economic decline for the last 39 years and throughout that period, without failure, Zanu PF has promised the nation a better tomorrow. When the economic recovery has failed to materialise, the party has never admitted failure but focused, instead, on the mirage in the distance. 

Minister Ncube’s vision 2030 middle income status is yet another mirage!

What Zimbabweans must focus on now with renewed energy and resolve is why the country has failed to remove Zanu PF from office after 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule? 

We all know the answer: Zanu PF has blatantly rigged elections for the last 39 years. The party blatantly rigged last year’s elections. 

What is worse, seemingly upright citizens like Professor Mthuli Ncube, Kirsty Coventry, etc. knew the country was stuck with a corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship; and yet they have again and again agreed to work for the illegitimate regime and propping it up. 

It is high time that these seemingly upright citizens, hypocrites who have shamelessly promised the long suffering ordinary Zimbabweans a mirage, are held to account. Since Zanu PF rigs elections, one way of holding the hypocrites’ legs to the fire is to add them to the sanctions list!

Mnangagwa, free elections are not a "utopia" and hence the sanctions must stay N Garikai

When President Mnangagwa seized power from his former boss Robert Mugabe in the November 2017 military coup he promised to change things from what Mugabe had been doing for the last 37 years. 

On the economic front, he promised to scrap all the laws and the lawlessness that had made it near impossible for anyone to do business, end corruption, etc. “Zimbabwe is open for business!” became his calling card! 

He had starting flashing his calling card within weeks of taking over from Mugabe; he has at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2018. He had not changed a single thing to cleanse the country of its demonic past and yet he was already claiming the country was ready to do business. This made many people suspect he was not sincere. 

In 2016 Mugabe admitted the country was being “swindled out of US$ 15 billion in diamond revenue alone”. He never arrested even one diamond swindler nor recover one dollar. Mnangagwa has yet to arrest one diamond swindler in his two years in office. Those who suspected Mnangagwa was paying lip service to economic reforms were proven right. 

On the political front, Mnangagwa to restore the democratic rights of the people and promised to hold free, fair and credible elections. He refused to implement even one token democratic reform and went on to blatantly rig the July 2018 elections.

“No amount of propaganda can spin or sugarcoat this gruesome truth. The continued judgment and setting of utopian standards for Zimbabwe, which are never applied in any other jurisdictions, are callous, vindictive and should not be allowed to continue. This is the basis on which we say, enough is enough. Remove these sanctions,” argued President Mnangagwa last week.

How dare he say that!

He denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora a vote because he feared most of them would never vote for the party they know made them economic and/or political refugees. The regime failed to produce a verified voters’ roll so no one knows who voted, how many times, etc. When some dared to protest over yet another rigged elections he ordered soldiers to shoot to kill to silence all dissent. 

And now he dares tell Zimbabweans that to expect free, fair and credible elections is utopia! 

Of course, every thinking Zimbabwean out there is furious that Zimbabweans are still being denied  them this basic human right - a meaningful say in the governance of the country. The right to free and fair elections is more than just a right it is the nation’s only hope to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance after 39 years and counting of being stuck in this hell-on-earth Zanu PF had landed the nation in.  

The root causes of the country’s economic meltdown are 40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. And the nation has been stuck all these years with this incompetent and corrupt Zanu PF dictatorship. 

The ill effects caused by the sanctions are marginal compared to the disastrous effect caused by mismanagement and corruption. However sanctions have helped to highlight Zimbabwe’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections and, more significantly, pile the pressure on the regime to hold free elections.

The sanctions must remain; indeed, increased; until we have free, fair and credible elections.

Free, fair and credible are not just a basic human right this is the nation only hope to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. 

How insulting that those responsible for dragging the nation into this hell-on-earth are denying us the chance to get out of this hell by blatantly rigging elections under the pretext free, fair and credible elections are a utopia.