Mnangagwa admits he is no nearer State House than one walking from China

Last year, when VP Mnangagwa was sworn into as the first VP everyone thought that he was the crown-prince settling the Zanu PF succession question Mugabe has cleverly avoided for 35 years.

 

Within weeks of the appointment it was clear Mugabe had gone back on his word and the succession issue was far from being settled. Mnangagwa has not commented on this development until now.

 

“You see, you can be on the road between the State House and Zim House,” he explained in an interview with New African Magazine, “the President’s official residence across the road.

 

“You can throw a stone into the yard of the State House when you are on that road, but someone walking from here to China will arrive first before you arrive in State House if you are on that road. So that is what it is. That is how far it is!”

 

Yes Mr Mnangagwa, we know exactly what you mean; the race to State House is an impossible one to win because no one except Mugabe knows the rules and he keeps changing them to suit his selfish purpose of remaining president for life and ruling from behind the grave by making sure that he and he alone decide who will rule after him!

 

Many people have dreamt of succeeding Mugabe as State President and for 35 years Mugabe has out foxed them all to remain top dog. Mnangagwa was one of those who have been aspired for high office but was cheated by Mugabe again and again now he does not know what time of day it is anymore.

 

In 2004 Zanu PF was going to have an elective party congress to elect a new VP to replace the late Simon Muzenda. Mnangagwa amassed support from six out of the ten party provinces and the position was his, so he thought.

 

Mugabe change the party’s constitution, with the prompting from his shrew wife Grace as she has since admitted; ignoring party rules and procedures. The amendment demanded that one of the top four positions in the party must be a woman. Poor Mnangagwa short of a sex change, he found himself ruled out of that race. Joice Mujuru won that race!

 

Last year, it was Joice Mujuru’s turn to be cheated. She had 8 out of the 10 provinces lined up to back her bid to retain the VP post but Mugabe fearful she was getting too powerful and would challenge him for the top position next accused her of “factionalism” and had her and a number of her supporters out of the party.

 

Of course factionalism is a nonsensical accusation, but that is Mugabe for you! He makes the rules as he goes along; Mai Mujuru was found guilty of breaking the rules no one knew existed.

 

Last year Mnangagwa did not object to Mugabe breaking the party rules again to stop Mai Mujuru, after all he was the chief beneficiary and not the victim this time. But that was not to be so for long!

When Mnangagwa was sworn in as VP, it was made clear he was going to be the first VP making him Mugabe’s heir-apparent and thus finally resolving the question of who would succeed Mugabe. But within weeks of this, Mugabe had changed and had it known that Mnangagwa was NOT his chosen his successor and that the race was wide open with no front runners.

 

“A president is elected at the party congress,” explained Mnangagwa in the interview. “There are no conditions that you must be at this level or that level to become president. The condition is that you must be a member of Zanu PF, and anybody can become a member of Zanu PF. So you can’t say that because I am vice president or a member of the Politburo or a member of the Central Committee, I am nearer to becoming President.”

 

Mnangagwa was repeating, parrot style, what Mugabe had said.

 

It was Mugabe who elected Mnangagwa and the other VP Mpoko and all the Politburo members and no one else in the party had a say in this. At the end of the day Mugabe will decide in his own sweet time who will be president and Mnangagwa, after 35 years of waiting in the wings and being a stone’s throw away may well lose the race to someone who may well have started the run from China!

 

In a few weeks’ time Mnangagwe will be turning 73 years of age, he has waited 35 years to be president, has come close a few times but to have the price snatched away now will be cruel and yet he is being forced to acknowledge this with a smile.

 

It is impossible to even pretend to feel sorry for Mnangagwa, he is getting his due deserves! When it comes to rigging the national elections Mnangagwa has been Mugabe’s right-hand man in this so why should the nation have any sympathy for the man who has helped the tyrant short changed them again and again.

 

Mnangagwa knows that he has for the umpteenth time been shafted by the cunning old fox Mugabe; he knows the whole world knows that and is laughing at him and yet he has to once again pretend Mugabe plays by the rules.

 

“A president is elected at the party congress,” said Mnangagwa. Yeah right! Those must be the hardest words Mnangagwa has ever had to say in his whole miserable life; he knows he is no nearer entering State House than someone walking from China given Mugabe’s knack for rigging elections!

Grace Mugabe assumes the Marie Antoinette mantra and per se the same exit!

Mrs. Mugabe, who spoke for more than an hour, boasted about how she engineered former Vice President Joyce Mujuru’s demise, adding she will be “blowing the whistle for those who are offside in the party”.

“Mai (Mrs.) Mujuru didn’t like my ascendency as the women’s boss as she organised people to heckle me at my rallies but I warned her and she didn’t listen until I said enough is enough and whistled her offside and she was ejected from the party.”

Madam your husband is clinging on to power like a binnacle to a rock. He rigged the July 2013 national elections, rigged Zanu PF's own party elections and now he is dragging the whole nation into total economic collapse by refusing to implement the critical economic and political reforms. 

If Mugabe thinks people are going to let him destroy the whole nation to gratify his insatiable hunger for power and wealth then he is in for a surprise. As for Grace, if she wants to assume the Marie Antoinette "Let them eat cake!" then she will have to accept her magnanimous exit to meet her maker! 

 

Your husband, yourself and the whole Zanu PF dictatorship is not just off-side it is causing untold suffering and misery and have murdered over 30 000 in its 35 years in power; why have you not blown the whistle?

The current economic meltdown is serious and urgent; there is going to be regime change because the situation is socially and politically unsustainable. Where will you and all your whistle blowing skill be, after regime change?

Mugabe's feeble SONA has taken the nation to the point of no-return

Today, 25 August 2015, Mugabe presented his State Of The Nation Address (SONA) to parliament a very rare event; he gave the last one in 2007. It was short, 30 minutes long, but worse still it was a great disappointment because he said nothing about how his regime was going to end Zimbabwe’s serious, urgent and worsening economic meltdown.

 

Ever since Mugabe rigged the 31^st July 2013 national elections the national economy has taken a decided turn for the worse. Mugabe thought he could rig economic recovery with his very ambitious $27 billion (nearly three times the nation’s national debt) ZimAsset plan and create 2.2 million jobs in five years, 2013 to 2018. He has since failed to get anyone, not even his “all weather friends” the Chinese to bankroll the plan. He has failed to create even one single job two years into the five years of the plan.

 

Indeed instead of creating more employment opportunities the nation has seen more and more companies closing down and throwing even more workers on the mountain of unemployed. In the clearest sign yet that the economic situation is getting decidedly worse; in the last month over 20 000 workers were laid off. There are more lay-offs in the pipeline. It was this wakeup call – so millions of Zimbabwe must have thought - that prompted Mugabe to finally get off his backside and do something to address this national economic crisis. The whole nation held its breath during the SONA; in expectation of a radical change of course to get the nation out of this hell!

 

Of course the nation was very disappointed and disgusted to hear Mugabe repeat the same old empty promises.

 

"This has seen government signing key projects with China, covering energy, railways and telecommunication, water, mining, agriculture, and tourism," Mugabe said at one point. He went to China last August and signed these “mega deals” but China has since refused to spend a single dollar on these projects until Zimbabwe pays the outstanding debt serving repayments on the $1.5 billion debt to China.

 

It was totally disheartening that Mugabe would gloss over the worsening economic meltdown to talk of “marginal recovery”!

 

“This man (Mugabe) must certainly be living in another planet!” remarked MDC-T’s Luke Tamborinyoka.  

 

In parliament MDC MPs greeted Mugabe’s feeble speech; old age has definitely caught up with him although he continues strenuously trying to give the impression that he is “as fit as a fiddle”; with chants of “Zanu PF is rotten!” The futility of their chanting may have been lost of MDC politicians but not on the nation.

 

The national ship is heading straight for the dangerous rapids and the captain is shouting “Steady she goes!” with the ice cold indifference of one who has his rescue plan and does not care about the danger, suffering and even deaths of everyone else on the ship. During the GNU MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to stop Mugabe and Zanu PF rigging the elections and thus taking over control of the ship and they wasted that chance. And now with the ship tossing and turning dangerously in the swells and fast flowing flood; what comfort will the nation derive from knowing Zanu PF is rotten?

 

No Mr Tamborinyoka, Mugabe is living on this planet, and it was MDC leaders’ breath-taking incompetence that allowed Mugabe to rig the 2013 elections and thus extend his stay in State House. And now the whole nation is paying dearly for MDC leaders’ betrayal because having wasted the chance during the GNU to implement the reforms it God only knows what hell on earth the nation will face before we finally get another chance to end Mugabe’s reign of terror.

 

“Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared,” said George S Clason.

Zimbabwe had is best ever chances to end this Mugabe dictatorship during the GNU but in electing the corrupt and incompetent Tsvangirai et al to implement the reforms we showed that we were not yet ready for a democratic system of government. The plus side of the worsening economic meltdown is that it is forcing Mugabe to accept he has failed and thus creating the next chance for the nation to implement all the democratic reforms. One hopes that this time the haughty goddess will find us well prepared and ready for change!

We in the Zimbabwe Social Democrats believe Mugabe has wasted his last chance to save this nation from the consequences of total economic collapse and/or serious social unrest or worse. By refusing to accept that Zimbabwe’s worsening economic meltdown is socially and politically unsustainable Mugabe has taken this nation past the point of no return. Pray the hours will not be many and that we will be spared too much suffering and deaths, for there is no doubt that we are now entering the darkest hours in our history.  

China in volte-face about funding ZimAsset to buy time to loot!

Ever since Mugabe launched his ZimAsset economic recovery plan as part of his 2013 Zanu PF elections manifesto he has struggled to get donors to finance the plan. Ever since the party successfully rigged the July 2013 national elections Zanu PF has been on a charm offensive to re-engage the West to get them to fund his plan but to no avail.

 

Mugabe has begged and grovelled to the Chinese but they too have refused to fund his plan. But all of a sudden there are reports that the Chinese have now changed their minds and they will bankroll ZimAsset!

 

"What is very encouraging from the Chinese is that they have put no limit on how much they will want to pour into the projects,” reported The Sunday Mail quoting a Zimbabwe Government official.

"What came out of the high-level talks is that the level of seriousness in implementing the deals has now gone a gear up. This is why the subject of financing as well as immediate implementation was topical during those talks."

 

There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially from the tight fisted and shrewd Chinese! So what has made the Chinese change their minds on financing ZimAsset?

 

Zimbabwe’s economy has been in serious economic trouble for years and the solution was glaringly obvious; the nation needed to finally bite the bullet and end endemic gross mismanagement and rampant corruption and scrap the obnoxious indigenisation laws that had forced Foreign Direct Investment to dry up. Instead of biting the bullet and deal with the cancers killing the national economy Mugabe decided to throw lots and lots of money, $27 billion, with his 2013 ZimAsset recovery plan.

 

$27 billion; that is nearly three times the nation’s national $10 billion debt, which would have been even larger if all credit-lines had not been cut because Zimbabwe was failing to service existing loans. Mugabe was hoping the credit-lines will be renewed allowing him to borrow and spend his way into economic recovery and prosperity.

 

After the rigged 2013 elections Mugabe’s regime went on a charm offensive to win the West back into bankrolling his ZimAsset plan. He failed to fool anyone; not even the Chinese were willing to fund the plan.

 

After a year and a half of begging and grovelling the Chinese and Russians finally signed what Mugabe announce as “mega deals” at the time. To start with the deals were for projects and not for the budgetary support Mugabe was seeking. Second, the funding was only to be released after Zimbabwe had fulfilled certain so none of the projects ever took off. The Chinese demanded that Zimbabwe was to pay all outstanding payments on its existing $1.5 billion debt first before China release funding on the new deals. The Chinese knew Zimbabwe is stone broke and one could say the cheques signed for the mega deals were undated, unsigned and not worth the paper they were written on.

 

So this announcement that work on the mega deals projects with the Chinese will start before the end of the year and they have not only signed and dated the cheque but have left Mugabe to fill in the amount too is a bolt out of the blue! What has changed to justify this volte-face by the Chinese?

 

Mugabe has certainly not done anything to end the corruption and all the other cancers killing the national economy. The only way for him to end the corrupt is by ending the political patronage system he has instituted all these years to reward party loyalties; with the country’s economy in total meltdown and everyone feeling the ill effects of the worsening economic situation Mugabe knows firing the corrupt and incompetent party loyalists now would be him committing political suicide.

 

Zimbabwe was failing to service its debt at $10 billion how on earth is it going to do so with the debt increased four-fold but with no significant economic recovery. Surely the Chinese are not extending new loans to Harare and expecting nothing!

 

 

"Innovative mechanisms will be used in implementing the deals. For example, you can say to the contractor, 'Take a certain percentage of equity for the loan's duration and then you can return this equity when the tenure of the loan is done'.” Deputy Chief Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet Colonel (Retired) Christian Katsande told The Sunday Mail. Well that would go a long way to explain the Chinese’s change of heart!

 

The “contractor” in all these mega projects with China is a Chinese company employing Chinese workers down to the man pushing the wheelbarrow. So if the usual waste due to corruption, etc. pushed the project costs to ten times or more China is not bothered. They know the Chinese worker pushing the wheelbarrow will be paid rock-star wages, one. Two, the greater the project cost the great the equity the Chinese will own in Zimbabwe!  

 

Since the Chinese are only funding bankable projects guaranteed to generate lots of profit they will cream-off the profits as the new owners for many, many years to come.

 

There is one other reason why the Chinese have decided to Fund Mugabe’s ZimAsset plan. The Chinese have been racking in billions of dollars every month from grand looting and plunder of Zimbabwe’s resources especially in Marange and Chiadzwa. No doubt the Chinese are aware that Zanu PF hold on power has been slipping fast these last few weeks with the worsening economic situation.

 

By agreeing to fund Mugabe’s ZimAsset the Chinese are bolstering Zanu PF’s political standing by creating the impression that the regime will after all deliver on its promise of economic recovery and thus extend the regime’s stay in power. As long as Zanu PF remains in power the Chinese know grand looting and plunder will continue.

 

So the decision by the Chinese to fund Mugabe’s ZimAsset plan although they know it is doomed to fail makes a lot of sense. They are using some the billions of dollars earned from the looting and plunder of Zimbabwe’s resources going on to fund Mugabe’s hare-brain plan to buy more time to loot. They are allowing Mugabe to be as wasteful as he please knowing this will increase China’s equity value of Zimbabwe’s bankable assets.

 

Zimbabwe will not be a colon of China but its economic slave. After decades of robbing Zimbabwe blind through looting and plunder of our resources; China is set to continue with the looting or be it by controlling and owning the nation’s bankable assets, bought using our own looted wealth!

Madhuku backs Mugabe's labour law for no better reason than opportunistic one!

The National Constitution Assembly (NCA) led Professor Lovemore Madhuku has come out with guns blazing in support of Mugabe’s proposed Labour Amendment Bill; sadly the NCA is shooting from the hip and thus a danger to the very people the party is hoping to help!

The bill is proposing that all the worked laid off since 17 July 2015 following the Supreme Court ruling that employers can lay-off workers with three months’ wage, terminal benefits be paid a month’s wage for every two years services. NCA is proposing the terminal benefits be extended to workers laid off before 17 July 2015 all the way back to 1980 and the benefits be one month’s wage for every year of service.

“The NCA party therefore calls upon Parliament to play its role responsibly by ensuring that the new law applies not only for the future but also remedial of the irresponsible behavior by the employers as witnessed in the past four weeks,” argued NCA.

“We believe that if the law is applied for the future only it will be unconstitutional and unfair discrimination against those who were unfairly dismissed

This is so because since 1980 there was no termination on notice until 17 July 2015 when the Supreme Court ruling was given.”

The bill is also proposing that employers should not be able to lay-off workers without the worker’s agreement unless there are good reasons for doing so. The spirit of the bill is to “stop the rot” that had resulted in 20 000 workers being laid-off since the 17 th July 2015 ruling. In other words laying off workers because of the economic downturn will not be considered a good reason. NCA concurs with this proposal.

Zimbabwe is facing a very serious economic crisis; companies have been closing down right, left and centre sending unemployment soaring into the stratosphere of 90% plus, 76% of our people are now living on less than $200 per month and two million of them are living in abject poverty, etc. There are two questions demanding answers.

The first question; is this proposed law in the national interest? Companies have been closing down because they are facing real and serious economic hardships and if allowing them to lay-off workers will stop more companies closing down then that is better option because it is a lot easier to rebuild a company than reviving one that has closed.

No employer would set out to lay-off an employee out of spite as is being suggested here, if there is malicious intend then it is by the regime that has failed to address the underlying causes of the economic meltdown and are now seeking cheap brownie points by turning the employers into the villains.

The second, but by far the most important and urgent, question: what are the underlying causes of the economic meltdown and what steps can be taken to address them without further delay.

Once the economic situation is under control, there must be a thorough judiciary/parliamentary inquiry to establish why the situation was allowed to get this bad. There is no doubt that there has been serious dereliction of duty and those responsible must be held to account and measures must be taken to ensure that this sorry situation never happen ever again.

According to Madock Chivasa, NCA was supporting the proposed bill “in line with the need for social justice and protecting thousands of families who are being subjected to poverty.” Yes demanding the retrospective application of this law to 1980 will see many, many families pulled out of abject poverty if their previous employers are still in business, which is doubtful given the many companies that have closed down, and if they are will have the money to pay the generous packages NCA is proposing.

The whole bill is in fact a throw-back of Zanu PF’s socialist days when the regime would announce hefty wage increases for the workers regardless of the employers’ ability to pay. All these socialist policies did was to lay the fountain of the nation’s economic decline.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest,” said the Scottish Economist Adam Smith near 300 years ago. It was true then it is true now and after 35 years of trying to buck the simple tried and tested rules of economics and failing dismally the last thing the nation want to do is go through yet another cycle of socialism experimentation.

Beside the problem of mismanagement and corruption Zimbabwe is rated a High Risk country to do business in because of the country’s obnoxious indigenisation laws. It this proposed bill is passed then it will constitute yet another obnoxious law would-be investors will find unworkable.

The proposed bill seeks to punish employers but in effect punish the 90% plus unemployed today becomes they will never be employed – no employer would want to employ them and be punished for doing so!

Funding ZimAsset has become a brinkmanship and China blinked first!

When it comes to the bankrolling of Mugabe’s ZimAsset plan, there has been a high-stakes brinkmanship game going on here between Mugabe and the Chinese; the latter have blinked first.  

When Mugabe came up with his hare-brain $27 billion ZimAsset plan, he knew he would probably fail to get any donor from the West to bankroll it but he was confident the Chinese would fund it. As far as he was concerned them the $27 billion he was asking for was small change compared to billions the Chinese were making from all the looting and plunder going on. Besides, Mugabe reasoned, the Chinese know they would lose their pole-position amongst the nations with unfettered looting and plundering rights to Zimbabwe’s resources if Zanu PF was to lose political power in Zimbabwe.

The Chinese, for their part, did not step up to bankrolling Mugabe’s hare-brain plan hoping others would be naïve enough to do so. When it was clear no one else would and Mugabe was turning the screw on them to finance the plan; the thought by holding-out they would force Mugabe to implement the economic reforms such as ending the corruption and scrapping the obnoxious indigenisation laws.

By the time Mugabe visited China last August, it was already a year into the five-years of the ZimAsset and Mugabe still did not have a single dollar in the begging bowl. To say he was desperate is an understatement. He must have thought the Chinese just wanted him beg and grovel and so he went to China with a begging bowl in one hand and kneeling pads in the other. Still the Chinese did not budge.

Make no mistake about it, the Chinese want Zanu PF to remain in office; it is no secret that they have helped Zanu PF rig elections in 2013 and in the past. The Chinese offered a one billion dollar sweetener if their man, V P Emmerson Mnangagwa was to succeed Mugabe, The Telescope reported. But offered nothing in budgetary support Mugabe was after.

Last month VP Mnangagwa was back in China to tell his Chinese handlers that if nothing was done to alleviate the worsening economic meltdown then there will be regime change in Zimbabwe because Zanu PF was losing its grip on power. With unemployment now at 90% plus, 76% living on less than $200 a months, etc. the economic consequence of the economic meltdown were now socially and politically unsustainable.

The Chinese have blinked first; they have decided to fund “bankable” ZimAsset projects and five experts from the Development and Reform Commission, the body credited with formulating and implementing China’s economic recovery under Chairman Deng Xiaoping. 

There is no question of China turning the Zimbabwe economy and repeat the same economic miracle of China, not without carrying out the economic reforms necessary to end the rampant corruption, scrapping the obnoxious indigenisation laws, etc. China is now involved in Zimbabwe to do all it can to prop up the Zimbabwe economy for the sole purpose of extending Zanu PF’s stay in power, with their man, Mnangagwa, at the helm; whilst they continue to loot and plunder the country’s resource.

As long as Zanu PF can be seen to be easing the economic meltdown the pressure on the party to accept the political reforms will be reduced. This is just kicking the tin can down the road since there will be no real economic recovery until the problems of corrupt, etc. are addressed. What Zimbabwe needs is to have all the democratic reforms implemented followed by the holding of free, fair and credible elections and stop wasting time. The people of Zimbabwe have good reasons to protest China’s time wasting antiques!

Zanu PF is imploding and it is not surprising that there are some people in that party who do not want VP Mnangagwa as next State President but know that he will be the next President if the Chinese are allowed to continue meddling in Zimbabwe’s internal affair to the extent of having the casting vote and veto on who should be President!

“Successionists claiming Zimbabwe is undergoing a Deng Xiaoping Moment are too ambitious and misguided,” commented Professor Jonathan Moyo. He was referring to VP Mnangagwa who has been doing his best to give the impression that the arrival of the Chinese experts is proof of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery.

“Zimbabwe ain't China!” Moyo menacingly warned.

Of course Professor Moyo is right; China has no right to interfere in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs. Professor Jonathan Moyo is as unscrupulous as the Chinese themselves; he will know all the dirty tricks they have employed in the past to help Mugabe and Zanu PF stay in power. The real question the Chinese must now answer it whether the additional time gained from propping up Mnangagwa is worth the risk of having all their dirty past brought out in the open but that is the price they will pay for crossing swords with the unscrupulous Professor Moyo.

It is bad enough for the nation to have to deal with its own corrupt and murderous tyrants without outsiders poking their noses into our own affairs as well! It is right and proper that the Chinese are told in no uncertain terms to fcuk off!

Tsvangirai cannot be leader he took 2 step forward and 10 steps back

MDC Secretary, Douglas Mwonzora’s justifying his assertion that Tsvangirai is the best foot forward for the nation on Tsvangirai and MDC electoral achievements. They defeated Mugabe and Zanu PF at all the elections but did not get into power only because Zanu PF cheated. He has been very careful not to say a word about why it has been child’s play for Zanu PF to cheat MDC again and again especially in the 2013 elections when MDC had boosted that the elections would be free, fair and credible!

 

Like all the other MDC leaders Mwonzora is fastidious in making sure he does not mention MDC’s record during the GNU, particularly the party’s failure to get even one reform implemented in five years.

 

The fact of the matter is Zimbabwe is looking for a leader who first and foremost will implement all the democratic reforms and end once and once for all the corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship Zanu PF has imposed on the nation. So Mwonzora is insisting Tsvangirai is that leader and above all insisting we ignore the fact that Tsvangirai has already failed to get even one reform implemented when he had the chance to do so during the GNU. He has airbrushed MDC’s pathetic performance during the GNU and is insisting we all do the same!

 

This is core weakness of our national politics; we take two steps forward and ten steps back and instead of taking a holistic outlook on our situation we coerced to make a big song and dance about the two steps forward and bamboozled, beaten and even murdered anything to force us to ignore ten steps backwards. Mugabe and Zanu PF have become masters on cherry picking on events they want and force feed the nation on these falsehoods and distortions.

 

If there is one part of Zimbabwe’s history everyone should know inside out it is the struggle for independence, for the last 35 years that is all Mugabe and his tightly controlled media has talked about and nothing else. Mugabe abandoned the all the commitment to freedom, liberty, justice and has for 35 years taken the nation down this ruinous economic path and yet the nation has not been allowed to talk about any of these things.

 

Before independence the nation aspired to one-man-one-vote, it was a rallying call; not so after independence. The right to free, fair and credible elections is core to our struggle today as it was before independence and yet all those demanding this fundamental right have been labelled by Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs puppets of the Western government bend on regime change.

 

Mugabe has taken the nation ten step forward in the fight to end the oppressive white colonial rule but has since independence drag the nation fifty steps backwards by denying the people the very freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and the right to life itself. We refuse to be forced to focus on liberation heroics only and ignore the reality that the same heroes have since become corrupt and murderous tyrants!

 

Mr Mwonzora, the people of Zimbabwe are refusing to accept Mugabe’s fallacious argument that because Zanu PF spearheaded the war of independence it is the only party fit to rule the country and anyone demanding free, fair and credible elections is a puppet of the West. Similarly the people are refusing to accept MDC’s equally fallacious argument that Tsvangirai is the best leader going forward just because they voted for him in the past regardless of the fact that he sold-out during the GNU. He took the nation two steps forward and then ten steps back and then means he will be a disaster for the nation!

 

2 – 10 = - 8

 

Mathematics is an exact science and the maths on Tsvangirai says it all!

 

During the GNU Tsvangirai proven that he is breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent just as Mugabe has proven beyond all doubt since independence that he is incompetent, corrupt and a murderous tyrant; it would be foolish to elect either of them to lead this great nation.

Khama's promise to make SADC "a beacon of democracy" send a chill down Mugabe's spine!

Botswana’s President Ian Khama is now the new chairman of SADC Head of State and boy-oh-boy is he a man on a mission.  He said he wanted the region “to be a beacon for democracy for Africa, and blasted leaders who cling to power”

 

Whenever old dry bones are mentioned in a proverb the old will not sit easy. President Khama’s speech must have caused a stream of ice cold sweat to run down Mugabe’s spine from the base of his neck right down into his pants!

 

There is no love lost between President Ian Khama and Robert Mugabe. Whilst many other African leaders have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by Mugabe’s anti-white rhetoric, to President Khama the rhetoric has been water of a duck’s back. When all the other African leaders turned a blind eye to Mugabe’s blatant vote rigging of the July 2013 Zimbabwe national elections, for example, the Botswana President was the only one who flatly refused to endorse the elections as free and fair.

 

When Mugabe went to Botswana for the SADC meeting his top priority was to kiss and make up with the incoming chairman; he turned on his charm offensive to max! He picked his favourite theme, anti-white; it has always worked wonders for him in the past. In his speech as outgoing SADC chairman, Mugabe told the story of how the Botswana President's father, Sir Seretse Khama, had been a victim of South Africa white racism because he had married a white woman. 

 

Now people can see why there was a river of ice cold sweat running down Mugabe’s spine; his flattery did not have any effect on President Khama. Here was a man on a mission to rid the region of dictators and was not going to allow himself to be so easily distracted or deterred.

 

President Khama slated Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza whose country has been plunged into violence after he decided to run for a third-term although the country’s constitution limited the  number of terms to a maximum of two terms.

Mugabe’s view on fixed maximum number of terms is that there should be no such constitutional stipulations. "It is a democracy, if people want a leader to continue, let him continue," Mugabe said.

 

President Ian Khama did not address this myth of rigged elections being passed as free, fair and credible elections on this occasion but we all know what he thought of Mugabe’s 2013 rigged elections! Zimbabwe a “democracy”, right!

 

Mugabe is an incompetent, corrupt and murderous tyrant who has destroyed Zimbabwe’s once healthy and prosperous economy forcing unemployment to soar to the dizzying height of 90% plus and the nation to be so impoverished it cannot supply something as basic as clean running water. Millions of Zimbabweans are leaving in abject poverty whilst millions have been forced to leave the country as political and/or economic refugees!

 

Mugabe has not just ruined Zimbabwe but the whole region too because the political and economic chaos in Zimbabwe have spilt over into the rest of SADC and beyond!

 

It is right and proper that at least one SADC leader should have the vision to see the tragic suffering dictators are causing to millions of our people and to have the courage to take this scourge head-on. President Ian Khama, the people of Zimbabwe and SADC salute you and wish you all the success in your mission to make SADC the beacon of democracy and good governance. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you!

Mugabe to stop firing of workers by banning downsizing of companies but cannot ban bankruptcy!

Since last month’s Supreme Court ruling allowing employers to lay-off employees with three months’ notice over 20 000 workers have been fired in three weeks, with thousands more now in the pipe line. Of course the nation has reason to be alarmed! 

 

Laying-off workers is cause for concern for any nation but for a nation like Zimbabwe with unemployment rate already 90% plus any laid-off worker is a tragic loss. The 20 000 laid-off workers in themselves are a drop in the ocean of 4 million or so unemployed the real impact is felt by the hundreds of thousands other people who were depending of each one of these workers directly or indirectly.

 

No one will dispute that the wholesale laying-off of workers demanded now more than ever that something is done and fast to stop this haemorrhaging of the very few remaining jobs in a country. But, as is always the case in desperate situations like this, demanding something be done is the easy bit; naming the right “something” is the billion dollar challenge!

 

After weeks of twiddling their thumbs and wringing their fingers, the Zanu PF government has finally decided to act. Mugabe has recalled parliament to debate a bill to stop employers firing workers. The proposed bill will say "no employer shall terminate a contract of employment on notice unless the employer and employee mutually agree in writing to the termination of the contract."

 

Coming up with the right solution is the challenge but trust Mugabe to come up with a really stupid solution guaranteed to make the country’s economic situation worse and not better!

 

No employer will engage a worker for the sole pleasure of laying-off the worker tomorrow; surely that has to be the starting point of any meaningful debate on this subject.

 

If a company is losing money hand over fist then it is only a matter of time before that company is forced to close down. Once a company is declared bankrupt it seizes to be an employer and no state law can force it retain employees and pay them wages. So companies that could have survived if they could downsize will now be forced into bankruptcy; in other words the new law will force existing companies to declare bankruptcy and close, laying-off everyone!

 

Worse still if it is near impossible to lay-off a worker, the would be prospective employer will have to be absolutely certain they need the worker not just for the present but for years to come before adding them to their books. Unemployment a nauseating 90% plus and therefore should be doing everything possible to encourage new and existing employers to take on new workers; we are enacting a law tell the employer take any worker at your own pearl!

 

Zimbabwe’s economy is in total meltdown because of decades of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and the worst anti-investor laws in the world. Since the 2013 rigged national elections Mugabe thought he could rig economic recovery with his ZimAsset plan which sought to throw lots and lots of cash, $27 billion, at the economy without addressing any of the underlying causes. The economic recovery has not materialized because Mugabe failed to get any donor to bankroll his hare-brain plan.

 

Unemployment is a nauseating 90%, 76% of our people are living in total abject poverty, etc. these are the signs proving that Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is real and it is taking a heavy toll on the nation. The new wave of companies laying-off workers is just the latest reminder that the situation is getting worse and not better.

 

We are in this mess because for decades we have failed to address the underlying causes like corruption and lawlessness fuelling the economic decline. Passing a law stopping employers forced to down size because of the worsening economic situation is not going to revive the economy; we are just kicking the can down the road – the Cul-de-sac. Mugabe’s stupid law will force company not to downsize but force them go into bankruptcy instead.

 

Mugabe’s proposed new labour law will just be yet another burden on the already overburdened economic environment. He is just digging the nation into deeper economic trouble and will not quit until he has completely destroyed the nation and the economy is in ruins!

Zanu PF resisting reforms because "we want development" argue Grace Mugabe!

Mugabe and Zanu PF have hijacked the people's struggle for national independence, freedom and human rights to redefine it in its narrowest format of a racial struggle to remove the whites and replace them with Zanu PF approved blacks. The regime has denied the people their fair share of the nation’s riches and even to the bare necessities of life like clean running water, health and education services.

 

The regime has air brushed the people’s hopes and dreams for freedom and human rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life. After 35 years of independence the country is yet to hold free, fair and credible elections; the people have been denied a free vote in pursuance of Zanu PF’s “no regime change” mantra.

 

“If you understand the history of this country, you will never vote for MDC,” said Grace Mugabe yesterday in Binga.

 

Binga and a few other areas in Zimbabwe were the lucky ones to have ended with MDC MPs and councillors after the 2013 elections; the elections were rigged but, admittedly, it would not have been prudent for Zanu PF to win all the available seats. 

 

“If you continue supporting Tsvangirai, you will stay like this (poor),” Grace threatened. “We have had more than twenty by-elections but Tsvangirai and his party have been boycotting. Zanu PF is winning and they cry foul. They are saying let us amend the constitution. We need development. We cannot focus on the constitution always.”

 

Grace’s threat was not an empty threat. Grace was in Binga “on a mission to capacitate developmental projects, especially the Bulawayo Kraal Project” reported The Herald. For 35 years the regime and its propagandists in the Zanu PF control public print and electronic media had never tired of reporting of development projects and yet the nation has been sinking remorselessly into the economic abyss dragging the people with it.

 

The poverty is everywhere in Zimbabwe; life expectancy, the qualitative and quantitative measure of the standard of living, has dropped from 68 years in 1980 to 34 years in 2008.

 

The amendments Grace was referring are the democratic reforms everyone agreed and signed onto, including by her husband, Tsvangirai, Mutambara and former South African President Thabo Mbeki, in the 2008 Global Political Agreement as necessary for free, fair and credible elections. Sadly MDC failed to get even one of these reforms implemented during the GNU.

 

Mugabe took full advantage of MDC’s betrayal of the people of Zimbabwe and SADC Heads of State, who had tried their best to warn MDC not to take part in the election without implementing the reforms. The people’s right to free and meaningful elections is the basis of good governance and is the root cause why Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess.

 

The converse is equally true; there only way out of the political and economic mess the nation now finds itself is by ending the bad governance by holding free, fair and credible elections.

 

The people have waited for their first free, fair and credible elections, all the democratic reforms necessary must be implemented as a matter of urgency. We must reject all Mugabe and Zanu PF’s attempts to short change the nations again and try holding the next election with no reforms implemented of the feeble grounds “We need development. We cannot focus on the constitution always,” as Grace said.

 

So for the last 35 years Zanu PF has cheated and denied our people their basic human freedoms and rights and dreams and aspirations of independence; holding these hostages to development that has never materialized! In fact the regime has denied the people the vote precisely because it did not to be held democratically accountable for failing to deliver on the development, economic prosperity and all the other promises the party has made.

 

He who takes you basic human rights and freedoms hostages has laid the ground work to rob you clean of everything your livelihood, your very life and those of all who matter to you. Only tyrannical regime would consider honouring the people’s basic human freedoms and rights an impediment to development when in fact they are the impediment to development and all the benefits good governance brings!