We live in a world with finite resources, there are not enough to meet all our needs and so we have to decide and make choices. The choice is often one of what luxuries one will have to do without. In a country like Zimbabwe facing a total economic melt down with the great majority of our people now living in abject poverty their choice is what basic necessities of life they will have to do without! With unemployment now at 95% many Zimbabweans have had to face the choice of sending a daughter or son to school or see the family starve to death, for example. Obviously, in this case education is a luxury. Apparently this is not obvious to the Zimbabwe GNU!
How does anyone justify taking funds from a life and death situation like cholera and food aid to spend on salary on lucky 5% to have a job and their sons and daughters who can still afford the luxury of having an education? But in Zimbabwe, this is not a surprising decision at all. We are a country of two extremes; the ruling elite with all the political power and their extravagant life styles on the one hand and the powerless and economically impoverished masses. It is the first time that resources necessary for live and death needs for the masses are diverted and used to buy luxuries for the ruling elite. Only last week the Zimbabwe Times reported of the GNU Ministers taking their new Mercedes Benz, twenty for MDC Ministers alone at US$ 50 000 each! No doubt in a rare moment of unity all the politicians across the political divide agreed to keep the Mercedes Benz and divert funds for Cholera and food aid to pay for teachers and the education of the rich’s children.
The GNU chose the right man to announce their “wise” decision, Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara. “We are going to get money under humanitarian assistance to pay for grants to students who are going to college, to pay for the salaries of teachers in higher education, to pay for salaries of teachers in the primary schools and secondary schools,” the DPM said. “It’s called ‘humanitarian plus’!” What else can anyone say after that; it makes everything as clear as mud!
To all the teachers and students out there, I would not cheer out loud because what the DPM did not say and is assumed is understood by all is that the diverted funds will be sued to pay politicians’ salaries, running cost of their ministerial cars and a host of other allowances first. Whatever is left- soon there will be nothing- will then go to paying teachers and students. Humanitarian plus!
The DPM said the regime was stealing – diverting, my foot – funds from Cholera programme “a result of an open refusal by Western nations to bail out the country” in one breathe. And in the next breathe he said the regime is getting the bail out money, reiterating what Finance Minister Tendai Biti has been saying. Both have conveniently avoided giving details of who was giving Zimbabwe money and how much. The West has repeatedly said they will not give any direct financial aid to Zimbabwe until there is rule of law. They have given indirect aid in the form of funding for the Cholera programme, food aid, etc. – funds the regime is now expropriating in the name of “humanitarian plus!”
Now that MDC has joined Mugabe’s ruling elite; it is becoming increasing hard to distinguish one from the other. The West will have to extend their targeted sanction to all the individuals in this GNU, Zanu PF and MDC alike!
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