Tony Hawkins wrote an article “Economy: growth or recovery” in which he question Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister. Tendai Biti’s forecast 2% growth rate. I did not care much whether the 2% was considered growth or recovery; that was all semantics. I was disappointed that in the last three years the Zimbabwe economy has only managed such a miserable growth rate when it could have achieved a 20 % rate plus.
We should remember that the Zimbabwe economy had registered a staggering 84% economic shrinkage in 2002 to 2008. If the GNU had managed to end the corruption, restore rule of law, etc. the country would have had billions in foreign aid and investment and with efficient utilization of our own human and material resources there is no reason why the national economy should not have taken off big-time. Why not; after all the country still had the infrastructure and the skilled workers.
The vitriolic attach against Tony was totally unjustified. Some people question his qualification to criticise without ever making a single economic argument to disprove Tony’s points. Across the board the Zimbabwe media and public had given Minister Biti’s budget a big thumbs-up! And all these people were now angry that Tony to expose their ignorance.
Anger is the shield and spear of choince of the ignorant!
People have often lamented the lack of quality leaders in Africa and of course they are right but what these people forget to mention is the lack of a quality electorate. Africa’s salvations lies in the transformation of a subservient, gullible and blissfully contended, sometimes to the point of hostility against those who dare remind them of their folly, masses into a thinking and confident electorate. For without a quality electorate; the quality leaders, even if a few could emerge, will never have the mass public support to change much!
(Tony Hawkins’ article is in the New Zimbabwe and SA’s Financial Mail.)
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This is a really interesting and important subject and thank you very much for bringing it up. I would not say the "ball is in the people's court" at least not as far as JOC is concerned. JOC believes they have the guns and therefore they can dictate what they please. The ball is in their court in that they call all the shots and like it or not we, the people are powerless to do anything. And admittedly that is exactly what we see on the ground.
The ball is in the people’s court in the sense that it is up to them now to do something to end this intolerable and repressive situation. And I say that the people have done something end this dictatorship.
In March 2008 the people of Zimbabwe voted in droves to give Mugabe and Zanu PF the biggest electoral defeat and Tsvangirai and his MDC party the mandate to rule Zimbabwe. The people knew that Mugabe and Zanu PF will not take kindly to any electoral revolt and the tyrant’s retribution was both swift and severe. He refused to accept that he lost the vote and demanded a presidential run-off tyrant and made sure that that the electorate were beaten into submission before the June 2008 vote.
Of course what Mugabe did in 2008 was an outrage and the whole international community was condemned the sham election. They refused to accept him as the legitimate President of Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai did not have to go into any power sharing agreement with Mugabe, not after what the tyrant had just done. And to add insult to injury sign a power sharing arrangement in which the tyrant had all his dictatorial power. That was down right stupid on Tsvangirai’s part and the nation has paid dearly for it.
Still even within the frame work of the GPA the opportunity to end the repression still existed. The March 2008 vote gave MDC control of parliament. Parliament has the power and authority to rein in Chihuru and all the other rogue security officers, for example, who have taken it upon themselves to neglect their duties of enforcing the rule of law or worse in their drive to keep Mugabe and Zanu PF in power at all cost. Parliament has the power and authority to impeach Mugabe himself if it can be proven that he has ever said or done anything to encourage the scourge political violence that has caused so much suffering and deaths in the country for all these years.
MDC had 57 MPs in the 2005 parliament but they made no difference supposedly because it was a Zanu PF controlled house. What is MDC’s excuse for doing nothing this time!
Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans were beaten or raped and over 500 lost their lives for a useless and powerless parliament; a paper tiger! Why anyone should ever bother to vote for Tsvangirai or any of his MDC friends beggars belief!
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Ray Bennet calls Zanu PF a “Mafia” gang. Has this reality just dawned on him now or is he saying this now because he was denied a chance to join his MDC friends at the table presided over by none other than the tyrant Mugabe himself!
It is rich for Mr Bennet to be calling Zanu PF the Mafia today and yet he like the rest of MDC leaders approved MDC's singing the GPA with Mugabe and for a long time after it said nothing! He is not different from all the other Zanu PF turncoats like Makoni, Nkala, Dumiso Dabengwa who had nothing but praise for Mugabe when they were in power only to criticise him when they fell out with the tyrant! We want principled leaders not good weather friends.
3 comments:
Tsvangirai tells Professor Ncube, the leader of the small MDC faction to stop criticising him.
Sorry but questioning Tsvangirai's competency is relevant and is of great public interest. It is not only Ncube who has said Tsvangirai is a "weak and indecisive" leader; Biti, Chamisa and Bennett according to the WeakLeaks cables have the same.
“Look at what we have done in the inclusive government. When the inclusive government was formed in 2009, our national budget was US$ 1 billion but the budget has increased to US$4 billion,” Tsvangirai boasted. Well what is that about saying nothing and be assumed a fool and open your mouth and remove all doubt!
The problem with leaders like Tsvangirai and Mugabe is that they really think as leaders they should be above criticism and sadly many of those below them buy into this s**t!
Tsvangirai you are a blundering indecisive leader and there is no hiding it! The people of Zimbabwe have paid dearly for all Tsvangirai’s blunderings we made a big mistake to elect him a leader. There is no greater fool than one who learns nothing from his past mistakes!
“We can give each other money but let us ensure that services are better and do benefit the people that pay rates and tariffs to you as the local authorities,” Mugabe said, to a loud applause from delegates to the conference.
That is capital coming from the man who has reportedly gobbled up a staggering US$ 45 million in foreign travel alone in the last ten months alone. And yet the government his presiding over is paying highly qualified civil servants a meagre US$ 300.00 a month because “there is no money” the nation is told. In other words Mugabe gives himself in foreign travel allowance enough money to pay 15 000 civil servants a month!
Zimbabwe’s economy has suffered this serious economic melt down because Mugabe and his cronies have been “giving each other money” and have been coming back for more and draining the life blood out of the economy. But of course Mugabe and his cronies do not even see this; to them the public purse is a bottomless pit of money!
Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's former Kleptocrat-in-Chief once said he did not see anything wrong with Zaire’s rampant corruption as “long as one does not take too much!” he argued. Clearly Mugabe subscribes to the same school of thought.
These tyrants gobble up lion’s share of the looted national wealth and their cronies have to settle for the crumps and, of course, there is nothing left after vultures are done. What is surprising is the tyrants’ feigned surprise that essential public services like health, education, road maintenance, etc. have collapsed for lack of funds!
There will be no meaningful economic recovery whilst the looting continues - once the gene is out of the bottle there is no putting it back. The only way out is for Mugabe to go; it was naïve of Tsvangirai to have believed that the GPA would change anything!
“We can give each other money but let us ensure that services are better and do benefit the people that pay rates and tariffs to you as the local authorities,” Mugabe said, to a loud applause from delegates to the conference.
That is capital coming from the man who has reportedly gobbled up a staggering US$ 45 million in foreign travel alone in the last ten months alone. And yet the government his presiding over is paying highly qualified civil servants a meagre US$ 300.00 a month because “there is no money” the nation is told. In other words Mugabe gives himself in foreign travel allowance enough money to pay 15 000 civil servants a month!
Zimbabwe’s economy has suffered this serious economic melt down because Mugabe and his cronies have been “giving each other money” and have been coming back for more and draining the life blood out of the economy. But of course Mugabe and his cronies do not even see this; to them the public purse is a bottomless pit of money!
Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's former Kleptocrat-in-Chief once said he did not see anything wrong with Zaire’s rampant corruption as “long as one does not take too much!” he argued. Clearly Mugabe subscribes to the same school of thought.
These tyrants gobble up lion’s share of the looted national wealth and their cronies have to settle for the crumps and, of course, there is nothing left after vultures are done. What is surprising is the tyrants’ feigned surprise that essential public services like health, education, road maintenance, etc. have collapsed for lack of funds!
There will be no meaningful economic recovery whilst the looting continues - once the gene is out of the bottle there is no putting it back. The only way out is for Mugabe to go; it was naïve of Tsvangirai to have believed that the GPA would change anything!
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