Tsvangirai dismisses the Zimbabwe’s budget and the projected
6.1% economic growth rate as “a mere fantasy”. Of course it is but do we need
Tsvangirai to tell us that, given it was his breath-taking incompetence that
landed us in this mess.
Tsvangirai told the nation that the 2013 elections would
be free and fair although everyone who is anyone said that would not happen,
not without implementing the democratic reforms first. Tsvangirai had five
years to implement the reforms and he did not get even one reform was implemented. He
was confident the elections would still be free and fair regardless.
Mugabe took full advantage of Tsvangirai's
breath-taking incompetence and rigged the elections.
Everyone knows the Zimbabwe economy is in a real mess for
years. For years now Zimbabwe's national budgets have been a wish list in which
all the Ministries say what they wanted but never got the money to pay for any
of it. MDC's Minister of Finance in the last GNU, Tendai Biti, admitted that he
got none of the diamond revenue, for example, which he had given as a key
revenue source in his budget.
Tsvangirai is now telling
us the Zanu PF government will not have the $4.4 billion promised in the
budget. This is just another wish list. What is important here is that we would
not be in this mess of meaningless wish list again if Tsvangirai had
implemented the reforms. It is therefore an irritant for him to be telling
us what we already know, particularly when it was his breath-taking incompetence
that landed us in this mess!
10 comments:
@ Chimbwido
Well Zimbabwe can go and get the unlimited money from the UN, SADC and AU then. The last two organizations have no money and it is the West who make the biggest financial contribution to the UN and the they will pull the plug if the UN continues to spend recklessly!
No one should reward Mugabe and Zanu PF for blatantly rigging the July 2013 elections. The people of Zimbabwe have the right to free, fair and credible elections and have hope for a competent government. No one should deny them that right and that includes the UN!
@ 1Beak1
You clearly have no idea what democracy is about. It is not that the government of the day will not make mistakes, even serious mistakes; it will. What democracy is about is that the electorate will be able to remove that government in free, fair and credible elections. There is one thing one can say about SA's elections since the end of apartheid there were all free, fair and credible. Zimbabwe is yet to hold its first free and fair elections. That is Mandela's legacy to SA and Mugabe's curse to the people of Zimbabwe!
Zanu PF has blacklisted 19 companies including Zimasco and Standard Chartered Bank for to not giving up the 51% shares to local blacks in line with the party’s indigenization policy.
Zanu PF has worked itself into a corner; it is desperate to attract new investment to get the national economy back on track and it is doing the exact opposite to get those new investors. "Come and invest in our country but we will rip you off," Zanu Pf is saying!
According to an internal report by the party's central committee, Zanu-PF's expenditure over the past year stood at $9-million against an income of $4.4-million. The party's liabilities "include a bank loan, accruals from telephone usage and outstanding creditors incurred during the harmonized elections totaling $5.8-million".
"The party, through the generous intervention of the President ... printed and distributed regalia and other items during the campaign." About $1.7-million was spent on this year's election campaign, and $420 000 went to legal fees to fight petitions filed by the opposition party contesting the poll results.
The party made a provision of $2.6-million for its conference last weekend.
This is a typical Zanu PF report full of contradictions, confusion but most worst of all the re-port shows just how filthy rich some Zanu PF members have become.
The report says the party has spent “$9 million in the past year”. Yet it is common knowledge that the party has paid the Israel company Nikuv to corrupt the voters roll $13 million, paid $10 million each to the two PR firms, one in the UK the other in the USA, to spruce up Mu-gabe and the party’s image, the party splashed $50 million in new cars for party candidates before the elections, etc. The party did not pay any of these large bills and we all know who did.
"The party, through the generous intervention of the President ... printed and distributed rega-lia and other items during the campaign," the report says. So the president and a few other Zanu PF officials paid the elections bills worth billions of dollars. It goes to show just how incredibly rich Mugabe and his cronies are.
But looking at the state of public finances, the Ministry of Higher Education received a puny $50 k out of a budget of $380 m, it is clear Mugabe was siphoning public funds to pay for the elections too. Some public departments like the Police, Army and the CIO did not have their funds slushed but increased. The CIO must have had their budget increased at least ten fold given the number of agents who have flooded the internet posting the usual Zanu PF propaganda and lies.
Zanu PF is broke and so is the country thanks to Mugabe and his cronies’ extravagant spend-ing – a vote rigging extravagance that will cost the nation dearly in billions of dollars in cash and in tragic human suffering and deaths!
@ Munjiba
Stop covering up for Tsvangirai's incompetence. If he was as powerless as you say he was then why did he remain in the GNU for five years? Why did he say the GNU was working when it was not? Why did he say Copac would deliver free and fair elections when it was a weak and feeble constitution?
Even now with the benefit of hindsight of Tsvangirai’s failures and their disastrous consequences to the nation only someone who is really thick will still think Tsvangirai is anything else other than the breath-taking incompetent leader he is! Is it any wonder Zimbabwe is in a real mess, with an electorate that is as thick as you.
It has never been the lack of candidates in Zimbabwe's elections. In the July elections there were at least 28 political parties but of course that did not produce the desire result of a good and wholesome government.
Tsvangirai may not have got the presidency after the 2008 elections but his party had the majority in parliament. It is a historic fact that he accomplished nothing, absolutely nothing, with his parliamentary majority.
So the important point is not so much that the nation needs someone else to take over from Tsvangirai - there is no fear of no one stepping up on the plate. The important point is how to ensure the nation does not make the same mistake and elect another breathtakingly incompetent leader whose only interest is to get on the gravy train.
How not turn an ignorant, easily frightened, desperate, naïve and gullible electorate into an in-formed, self-confident electorate finally ready to play their full role in a functioning and health democracy. It is for electorate to choice the competent leaders with sound policies but how can they do that when the nation is in a real mess after 33 years of mismanagement, corruption and looting and yet the people still have not got the foggiest idea what went wrong. After five years of blundering and wasted opportunities to bring about meaningful change by Tsvangirai the people still think it was not his fault!
A naïve and gullible electorate will never produce a competent government, tyrants like Mugabe know that and hence the reason why Mugabe has invested so much time and money in making sure the Zimbabwean electorate is completely brainwashed and brutalized out of their wits. So when the chance came to elect someone to bring about real change the people were so desperate and gullible they heralded one of the most incompetent leaders as their champion!
@ 1Beak1
People like you have heard of stories of Philip Chiyangwa's $270 million fortune, Obert Mpofu multi-millionaire, the late Solomon Mujuru's fortunate was over $9 billion, Mugabe has 13 com-mercial farms plus yet to be uncovered billions in foreign accounts, etc. What you have not heard or do not want to hear is the millions of Zimbabweans who are living in abject poverty and have no hope of ever getting out of it.
None of these Zimbabwean millionaires ever produced anything whose beginning one can trace; they are overnight millionaires. Most of them most made their fortunes during the years the Zimbabwe economy was shrinking not growing. We are talking here of a country whose economy shrunk a world record 84% in the six years 2002 to 2008.
People like Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Michael Jackson, etc. are millionaires with a proven track record of how they made their fortunes; computer software, motor cars and beautiful music. They worked hard, produce something the world wanted to buy; that is how the rules of economics work.
Mugabe’s brand of economic has chained out millionaires whose only attribute is that they are too lazy to produce anything themselves but are always on the lookout to use their political mus-cle to benefit from other people’s hard work. Mugabe and his cronies’ greed knows no bounces and it is not surprising they ended up killing the goose that laid the golden egg, Mugabe and cronies are millionaires but at the cost of destroying the Zimbabwe economy.
The promise of overnight millionaire without having ever to sweat for it has its obvious appeals and many Zimbabweans are still intrigued even in the face of the overwhelming evidence of the policies long term catastrophic economic meltdown and other failures. Of course, there are those whose abhorrence to hard work is some deeply engrained they will always be intrigue be the falsehoods of some day because filthy rich without ever working for it. They dream of winning the jackpot without even having to buy the lottery ticket!
It is not surprising that there are people sold on Mugabe’s voodoo economic inside and outside Zimbabwe!
@ Djoser
Zimbabwe is not the only country to have foreign companies doing business in its country. The local people have benefited from the foreign companies' presence by having employment opportunities and, for the nation, by contributing to the GDP.
It is Mugabe and his cronies who have benefited from all the corruption and looting that have going on for the last 33 years. Forget the propaganda of the ordinary people benefiting from the looting, they are poorer than ever.
The only people who stand to benefit from forcing foreign companies to sell 51% of the shares to blacks are Mugabe and his filthy rich cronies. Mugabe and his cronies have looted everything they could and now they are looking at looting the little still left to loot.
Mugabe’s voodoo economic policies only appeals to those who see looting as their only way to get rich-quick because they have no heart for an honest day’s work.
Mugabe is holding the nation to ransom by rigging elections and then imposing his voodoo economic policies. So first things first; Mugabe is illegitimate and he must go. It is completely point-less discussing Mugabe’s voodoo economic policies, he must first win the mandate to rule!
@ Mavheti
The song is the hit song this year and it is going to remain on the top until there are fresh elections!
You can ignore the song and pretend not to know the chorus:
"Mugabe rigged elections.
Mugabe is illegitimate.
Mugabe must go, now!
For Zimbabwe's, first free and fair elections
Yes, at, long last!"
A great song and you and Mugabe will know the song by heart! But better still will get to live its full meaning!
@ Mutota
I have offered a way out but you are rejecting it because it was the easy answer you were look-ing for. You want the broad and smooth road; well like everything in this world the it is always the difficult road, the straight and narrow, that will get us home.
A democratic and competent government will not come to us without our active solicitous participation. When the people vote for a tyrant or an incompetent as Zimbabweans have done then they are simply shooting themselves in the foot and, of course, they will have to suffer for it and they have!
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