“Grace Mugabe
demonstrated the immense power she now wields in Zanu PF when Cabinet ministers,
service chiefs and Zanu PF bigwigs scrambled to Harare International Airport to
welcome her back to the country on Sunday after she had been away in the Far
East for more than two months,” reported the Daily News.
Was this really a
welcome of a real rock-star or was it a welcome of a phony rock-star to divert
the people’s attention away from the nation’s real big issue – the economic
meltdown. Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is now beginning to bite and Mugabe and
Zanu PF’s are at sixes and sevens as what to do.
Before the 2013
elections Mugabe had given the excuse of “illegal sanctions imposed by the
British and the West” for the country’s economic failures. It was an excuse for
the easily fooled since Mugabe was free to trade with the rest of the world,
especially with the East as he himself admitted in his “Look East” policy.
In the 2013
elections Mugabe promised the nation economic recovery through his ZimAsset
plan and 2.2 million new jobs regardless of whether the West imposed sanctions
were lifted or remained. The success or failure of the plan depended on Mugabe
getting the $27 billion funding for it.
It took over a
year of grovelling and begging for Mugabe to finally get $4 billion and $3
billion of post-dated cheques from the Chinese and Russians respectively. The
two Eastern bloc giants agreed to fund ZimAsset projects but flatly refused to
provide the regime with the much needed budgetary support because Zimbabwe was
“a bad debtor” the Chinese told Mugabe to his face.
Mugabe had hoped
that other nations would follow the Chinese and Russians’ example of ZimAsset
funding support and provide the critical budgetary component of his ZimAsset
plan. The floodgate of donors Mugabe was sure was coming never happened. It is
now nearly two years into the five-year plan and he has not delivered any new
jobs out of the 2.2 million new jobs promised. Indeed in the period the country
has lost thousands of jobs pushing unemployment level to 90% plus!
The regime has
grudgingly accepted that without the budgetary support and the two post-dated
Chinese and Russian cheques (spending on projections has yet started) its
ZimAsset plan is all but dead in the water. All talk of implementing ZimAsset
has stopped; one cannot implement a plan that is dead.
With ZimAsset
dead, the economic meltdown has now taken centre stage. The headline news have
been about companies closing, someone or other not being paid, soldiers being forced
to take a month holiday every other month to save on food bill, new government
taxes, etc.; all spelling the worsening economic situation.
So to draw the
nation’s attention away from the worsening economic hardship and the fact that
the regime’s own ZimAsset plan is dead in the water; the Zanu PF propaganda
machine has gone into overdrive manufacturing its own headline news.
When Mugabe
returned from Ethiopia two weeks ago Zanu PF propaganda machine wanted his
election as AU chairman trumpeted from the hilltop. Mugabe played his part by
giving a vitriolic anti-western acceptance speech. On his return he got a
hero’s welcome at the airport complete with the usual bussed in Zanu PF
supporters. The propagandists were pleased with themselves until Mugabe tripped
and fell.
People laughed at
Mugabe’s fall to vent out their anger at being forced into this Mugabe praise
singing charade when pressing national issues are being ignored. The fall
became a serious PR disaster for Zanu PF.
Zanu PF needed to
stage a big show on Grace Mugabe’s return to show that Mugabe and the party are
still popular and hence Sunday’s rock-star welcome for her. Everyone in Zanu PF
and government turned up at the airport because in these days of political
turbulence and party purges, they are all keen to be seen to be very supportive
of Grace for fear they might be “dumped” next. She is the one who master minded
the dumping of Mujuru and many others list year.
As for the
ordinary Zimbabweans they could not be bothered going to the airport to welcome
Grace, still they are relieved that she back purely for financial reasons. They
were rightly worried about how much more her extended stay in Singapore was
going to cost the nation. She is a woman of little intellect but very expensive
and extravagant tastes; the sooner she returned the better for us, the Zimbabwe
public, who will be expected to pay the bill. After three months we can expect
the bill of $12 million, at least!
“You need to be strong
as women, not just to sit back,” said Zimbabwe’s answer to Madona and Evita
rolled into one to her adoring fans at the airport. “Despite not feeling well,
I have remained strong, I have energy. This is the third operation that I have
undergone in my life so I cannot say I am a complete human being. In 1986, I
had my tonsils removed. They did tonsillectomy on me because I had problems
with my throat which was always sore. In 1996, I also had my gall bladder
removed because it caused severe abdominal pains owing to too many acids… so
severe were the pains that at one point I suspected that my cooks had poisoned
my food.”
“You get to think
along those lines when you are in pain. That is the reason why I am particular
about what I eat. I cannot eat food like meat now because I must not take fat
and even the whole family including baba (Mugabe) now follow my diet.”
So Zanu PF members came
from every corner of the country to listen to that! You can take a man out of
the ghetto but cannot take the ghetto out of some people; well that is especially
true with phony rock-stars! Grace is no Madonna!
9 comments:
Zanu PF is now behaving like a husband who buys the wife flowers, channel 5 and other very expensive gifts in the hope that she will never find out that there is no food in the house, the family car has been repossessed for failing to repay the loan and even the house is going for the same reason. All because his "business" trip was in fact three week luxury holiday trip with his floss on the Legend of the Sea Ocean Cruise. The presidential suite is not cheap, ask Morgan Tsvangirai he knows; lucky for him someone else paid his bill.
The Zimbabwe economy is in total meltdown and Mugabe‘s ZimAsset is dead in the water and the tyrant is spending money as if there is no tomorrow. Last year Mugabe squandered $1 million on his birthday bash followed by $ 5 million on his daughter’s wedding. This year he has already been on an extended two months holidays in the Far East with his extended family with an extra month throw in for the wife to have a routine one-week operation – total cost $12 million, at least. He now has birthday bash coming up next week where Zanu PF Youth are committed to spend $ 1 million and the taxpayer will spend as much to get his entourage and hangers on to Victoria Fall and back.
All these expensive holidays and no-expense spared parties may help take Mugabe’s mind off the nation’s worsening economic crisis but there are only highlighting what a selfish and reckless tyrant he is. Only a heartless tyrant would not be moved by the fact that 100 children are dying every day of preventable dis-eases because the nation has no money to buy the necessary drugs. And yet the $13 million squandered on his holiday and birthday in this year alone would have paid for the drugs!
With unemployment now at 90% plus and 16% or 2 million Zimbabweans now living in abject poverty Mugabe is deluding himself if he thinks Zimbabweans have not notice that the country is in total melt-down. We have noticed and now ask him to step down or he will be forced to Muammar Gaddafi style!
@ Mturikwa
The world will know he is spending $1 million on his birthday when 100 children are dying every day whose lives would have been saved if the money had been used to buy them drugs.
Those children will never forget the extravagant feast of that day compared to the years of heart breaking poverty; they will know there was something sickening about the day and the tyrant!
A nation ruled by fear but most by ignorance born out of laziness; there is nothing rocket science about what is going on here.The fact that millions can be conned by village idiot like Morgan Tsvangirai not once but again and again says it all.
We are not ready for good governance and so, like it or not, in are in for a long rough ride.
FORMER war veterans' leader Jabulani Sibanda has urged Zimbabweans to pray for divine in-tervention to put an end to a "dirty corrupt lot" in Zanu-PF oppressing fellow countrymen and looting State resources.
Well, being brutally kicked out of the party has taught Sibanda something useful for a change that there are people in Zanu PF who are actually “oppressing fellow countrymen and looting state resources!” That is a great start! Now the brute has yet to learn that for decades he has at the forefront of those have been oppressing Zimbabweans for selfish political gain.
Mr Sibanda you are one of the “dirty corrupt lot”!
@ Zvazvika
Mugabe has failed, his ZimAsset economic recovery plan is dead in the water and now it is time for him to go and go he will! The demo is to remind him in no uncertain terms that it is time for him to go. Whether you like it or not, whether Mugabe likes it or not this simple message will get register in that 91 year old cup-cake!
Mutasa had shown a great deal of courage in standing up to Mugabe and Zanu PF to say the elections were rigged; everyone saw that and knew that to be true, but after decades of allowing Mugabe to do as he pleased no one dared say it. Mutasa did, in a moment of anger or whatever; what mattered is that he said it loud.
But clearly when push came to shove, Mutasa chicken out; he did not have the guts to challenge Mugabe in a court of law. Tsvangira challenge the July 2013 rigged elections but after a few nights of living in fear he too chickened out.
Whilst no one can ever rule out the possibility of Mugabe punishing Mutasa or Tsvangirai if they had dare to challenge him in court still that was not the main reason the two chickened out. They chickened out because they are not principled and they have never stood up for anything of substance in their whole lives as their past shows. To expect them to do so now was to expect blood from a rock!
Mugabe has spent a lot of time, energy and money engineering Zanu PF's internal dog fight and took his eyes off the real biggest challenge to his hold on power - the economy. Admittedly there is very little he can do now on the economy now that his ZimAsset recovery plan is dead in the water because other than two post-dated cheques from the Chinese and Russians there is no money in the ZimAsset begging bowl.
The failure to address the economic collapse has resulted in more and more companies closing sending unemployment into the stratosphere of 90% plus. 76% of the population is now living on less than $200 a month. Anyone with any common sense will know that this in economically, socially and politically unsustainable.
Mugabe and Zanu PF's reign is over, whether Mugabe knows it is now irrelevant because regime change is going to take place regardless.
As for Grace, she really does not have a clue what is happening she is a simpleton who believes she was born to loot and have a good time! She dreams of being president but has no clue what the country's eco-nomic problems are. She is a dreamer, let her dream.
MDC have been a total failure and our failure to see that has been the greatest hindrance to political pro-gress in Zimbabwe. The very fact that we still have a section of our electorate who still think any of the MDC leaders have anything to offer shows just how politically naive they are. It was bad enough to have trust MDC throughout the GNU but to do so after shows some people just refuse to learn from their past mistakes.
Biti knows he and the other MDC leaders have nothing to offer, all they are doing is taking advantage of the electorate's political naivety! If they did not there are thousands waiting in the wings to do just that.
If we are serious about change then we must first take our duties to educate the electorate with the seriousness it deserves! As long as we have a naive and gullible electorate there will be many incompetent and useless political opportunists like Biti whose only interest is to get on the gravy train.
@ Chido Chikuni
“Zimbabwe's industry continues to bleed under the illegal economic sanctions that were imposed on the country by the westerners who were using Tsvangirai to effect regime change,” you say.
You clearly never understood what ZimAsset was all about, you would not be wittering about the sanctions otherwise because ZimAsset was designed to deliver economic recovery regardless of whether the sanctions were lifted or not.
The Zimbabwe economy is in total meltdown because Mugabe failed to get funding for ZimAsset especially the budgetary support. The Chinese told him they would not give him even a dollar for the budgetary support because “he is a bad debtor!”
Mugabe rigged the national elections in July 2013 and last December he rigged Zanu PF’s own party elections but the one thing he has failed to rig is economic recovery. There will be regime change is Zimbabwe because, like it or not, the economic meltdown will only get worse the long-er Mugabe stays in power. Unemployment is now at 90% plus, 76% of the people are already living on less than $200 per month, etc.; this is socially and politically unsustainable!
Post a Comment