Last
Mugabe bought new top-of-the-range vehicles for his 26 minister and their
deputies at a cost of $20 million much to the anger of the MPs. The MPs are
bitter, not at the lavish waste public money at a time government is failing to
pay for the life and death basic public needs, but that the parliamentarians
were not getting a fair share of the looted public wealth!
Mugabe
had no choice but to do something to appease his cronies. The last few months
he has gone out of his way to flout his wealth and riches with the lavish birthday,
a lavish wedding for his daughter, inviting the world to take a peep at his lavish
Borrowdale mansion, etc. Not even the wedding cake could take away the bitter after-taste
left by this lavish display. The new vehicles was meant to assure his cronies
that they too will get a share of the looted national treasure. Sadly the
tyrant did not have enough cash to feed the piranhas too!
Resources,
like everything else on earth, are finite; there is no such thing as a bottomless
mine of diamonds and money. The Zimbabwe economy has been sinking at an amazing
rate, fuelled by the insatiable greed of Mugabe and his ruling elite. When
there is not enough to feed everyone those furthest away from the centre of
power and influence get very little or nothing at all. MDC MPs, having fought
so hard to get on the gravy train, have been very bitter at getting nothing.
“Members of Parliament are not demanding
vehicles because they are being demeaned as is being reported, but they are
saying give us what is due to us,” MDC’s Mabvuku Tafara legislator James
Maridadi told SW Radio Africa.
Maridadi said every legislator is
entitled to a vehicle for use in their constituency during their five-year term
in office.
“All we are saying is that the loans and the
vehicles must be made available so that MPs can do their constituency work
without hindrance. There is nothing scandalous at all in what we are asking
for.”
Maridadi said it was clear that
government did not consider the legislature important “and this is wrong, the
people should come first and luxuries second.”
People
like MP Maridadi fought tooth and nail to get on the gravy train and are now
that they are on it, they expect to get a fair share of the nation’s looted
riches.
MDC
had parliamentary majority and a raft of democratic reforms to implement throughout
the life of the GNU. The party failed to get even one reform implemented; they
had five years to do it and a parliamentary majority but failed to get even one
reform implemented. What of substance does Maridadi think a totally discredited
MDC can achieve this time round? Nothing; that is what!
Maridadi
is morning he is not getting lavish vehicles, allowances and all the other
gravy train benefits he expected. Serves him right! The people have no sympathy
for people like Maridadi who are crying that they have been forced into the fourth-class
coaches – kombombera - of the gravy train! The people of Zimbabwe have been
dying for meaningful democratic change to end all this crippling corruption and
to blow the gravy train to kingdom come! The whole gravy train should be blown
up first class, mbombera and everything in between!
3 comments:
@ Djoser
The regime has murdered over 30 000 Zimbabweans in its 34 years in power - were they all coup plotters "taking orders" from Smith? They only crime was that they dared demand their basic and fundamental rights and freedoms.
34 years after independence are there are still morons like you who continue to defend the denial of basic human rights to others under the pretext of fighting the white colonialists. This country is going nowhere until morons like you are rounded up and stopped. Appeasing you and tyrants like Mugabe has not worked and will never work!
@ Eddie Cross
You and your friend at MDC would have made it easier for your grand-children to be accepted as Zimbabwean citizens "in every sense of the word" if you lot had implemented the democratic reforms.
You keep talking about each of us doing their bit to earn the right to be a citizen and Zimbabweans did their bit. They risked life and limb to elect you lot in 2008 and over 500 paid with their very lives because they believed MDC would bring democratic change. You had five years to implement the reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
There are two main reasons why MDC did not implement the reforms:
1) blundering incompetence; people like Tsvangirai’s incompetence is breath-taking!
2) Greed: as soon as Mugabe gave MDC leaders the ministerial cars, Tsvangirai got the $ 4 million mansion and the right to globe-trot, etc. the tyrant knew MDC would never do anything to rock the boat. And that is exactly what happened.
I salute you as one of the few Zimbabweans, black and white, who really mean well but when it comes to MDC’s betrayal of the people and failing to implement the reforms the nation will never forgive you people for that. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; the people of Zimbabwe are living in hell right now, your grandchildren’s future could not be more uncertain. You are naïve if you think they will ever thank you, Tsvangirai or any of the MDC leaders for this mess!
After the mess MDC had made; it would be better for the nation if you lot would just go away and shut up! All this endless fighting for power in MDC is confusing the people and taking their attention away from the real big issues.
@ Chimbwido
If MPs are going to be paid their monthly salary and not a penny more, then the same should apply to Ministers. To buy the latter group cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, as for Mugabe himself spend $6 million of a birthday bash and lavish wedding for his daughter and spend nothing for the former groups smacks of selfish arrogance.
When these MPs were declared the winners of their respective constituencies they thought their future was secure, they were on the gravy train. Little did they know that Zimbabwe's gravy train now has the super-duper deluxe first class coach for Mugabe and his inner most circle, one or two second class coaches for Zanu PF MPs, high ranking civil servants like Chihuri, Judge Bhunu, etc.
The MDC MPs are in wagons fit to transport animals not humans – mbombera – and they have been shunted into siding in the middle of nowhere. Those wagons are going nowhere!
The Zimbabwe cake has shrunk so there is significantly less to go round, a situation that has been made even worse by the fact that Mugabe and his inner circle have taken the lion's share as usual. Zanu PF activists who helped Mugabe rig the elections only eight months ago are now being discarded by the tyrant like used toilet tissue. As for the MDC MPs, the tyrant owes them nothing and they can complain all they want, they will get nothing.
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