Zimbabweans voted MDC to stop the gravy train not to get on it!

The gap between what Minister BIti and MPs get in salary, allowances and other perks and that even the most senior civil servant like School Head or Doctors are paid is now a chasm. It simply does wash that a Doctor should be paid starvation wages whilst politicians are paid luxury wages in comparison. There is certainly a crying need for a more equitable allocation of scarce national resources.

The people are forced to live in abject poverty whilst the politicians are getting filthy rich. The politicians are in power to enrich themselves and escape the grinding poverty. They are there to look after number one - themselves. This is why politics has become such a dirty game; it stinks and, like a rotting carcass, it is attracting the worse in our society, the vultures and hyenas.

Holding public office is about serving the common good first and last and not a chance for individuals to enrich themselves. Well paid teachers, for example, will mean a quality education system; everyone will to benefit from that. Using the money to buy luxury cars for the Ministers, which is what this regime is doing, will serve to message the individual’s ego. Having two or three luxuries cars will not make the Minister perform his/her public duties any better? If anything, it is the promise of these luxuries and an escape from the growing poverty in the land that most of these politicians seem to care. Indeed holding public office has become so lucrative and of those aspiring for office have lied, cheated and even killed to for what they consider to be unfettered access to public funds and resources for selfish gain.

In some rural constituencies the MP’s expenditure constitute a significant part of total public expenditure in the constituency. Rural School and Clinic are barely functioning and yet hundreds of thousands are spent the constituency representative.

Zimbabweans risked all and over 500 lost their lives to elect Minister Biti and his MDC friends in the hope that they will stop the run-away Zanu PF gravy train. They did stop the gravy train, long enough to get on and then it was full steam ahead!

Those who have no interest in serving public interests other than their own should do so within the confines of the private sector and not the public sector.

The public have a right to demand a more equitable allocation of public resources, and a public strike is their way of registering that demand.