“The doctors are unhappy with their working conditions and remuneration. It is sad that the issue of doctor's conditions of service and remuneration has been long-running, and government has not gone beyond lip service in attending to the issue,” argued News Day in its recent editorial.
“The fact that the government would rather buy luxury vehicles worth of hundreds of thousands of dollars for traditional leaders demonstrates that its priorities are all mixed up.”
“Early this week, Mnangagwa pledged to turn around the welfare of traditional chiefs by piling benefits and a share of the $310 million set aside for devolution in the 2019 National Budget after the chiefs had presented a long list of demands at the National Chiefs Council conference in Kadoma.”
I agree 100% that doctors must be paid reasonable salaries, not the misery $384 a month, and that government must adequately fund the nation’s health service which has all but collapsed. The failure to pay doctors, etc. becomes more glaring given the fact government has been spending large fortunes of Chiefs and other luxuries.
Where I disagree with News Day is in its assertion that government “has its priorities all mixed up” in paying Chiefs and not doctors. Rewarding Chiefs is Mnangagwa’s priority miles ahead of paying doctors, etc. and it is naive to pretend otherwise.
Pampering the Chiefs is top priority to President Mnangagwa because it was the Chiefs, together with the other traditional leaders and Zanu PF operatives, who delivered the 60% or so rural vote for ED and Zanu PF in the recent elections.
“Observers widely reported on efforts to undermine the free expression of the will of electors, through inducements, intimidation and coercion against prospective voters to try to ensure a vote in favour of the ruling party,” reported the EU Election Observer Mission in its final report.
“Such practices also included direct threats of violence, pressure on people to attend rallies, partisan actions by traditional leaders, collection of voter registration slips and other measures to undermine confidence in the secrecy of the vote, manipulation of food aid and agricultural programmes and other misuses of state resources.”
Even Zimbabwe’s own government appointed body, Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission has confirmed how the rural voters were reduced to little more than medieval serfs forever beholden to the whims of the overbearing landlords, Zanu PF.
Last year the Chiefs assured Mnangagwa that they would campaign for him and Zanu PF in the coming elections, just as they have always done for Mugabe. They kept their promise, as stated above, and the Kadoma conference was about Chiefs demanding their reward.
If Zimbabwe had been healthy and functional democratic nation then both Mnangagwa and the Chiefs would been in serious trouble for denying the rural people their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote. Zimbabwe is a dictatorship and so instead of being punished for high treason the Chiefs were rewarded new trucks and Zanu PF rigged the elections to retain power.
“If truth be told, these traditional leaders who only serve the purpose of perpetuating Zanu-PF's stranglehold on power should not be a priority given the challenges facing this economy and the scarcity of resources,” continue the editorial.
“The situation in our public health facilities is so untenable that one wonders how our political leaders are able to sleep peacefully at night — perhaps because they and their families access health service abroad where healthcare workers are well taken care of by their own governments and have no need to embark on job action.”
Yes, the health, economy, education, you name it, situation in Zimbabwe is untenable. The truth that MUST be told, is we have all watched the health, economy etc. all sink into the sorry state they are in today because we did not have the courage to accept reality. For the last 38 years we have pretended Zimbabwe was a healthy and functional democracy because we did not want to admit it is a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship.
After 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule and with the country up to its eyes in the man-made mess surely we must now grasp the nettle and deal with this elephant in the room - Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party dictatorship.
Our challenge is to force Zanu PF to step down so we can finally implement the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair elections. We must stop the curse of rigged elections and the pariah state.
As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs, they will continue to pamper lawless Chiefs at the expense of a collapsing health service. We can pretend the government has its priorities mixed up and discuss what it should do until we are blue in the face; the wasteful abuse of resources will continue!
4 comments:
Zimbabweans have become experts at nitpicking, they will make a mountain out of a mole hill. Whilst their physical eyes, like that of any other human being, is capable of comprehending what is a few inches away as well as what is in the horizon thousands of kilometres away.
The mental eyes of the nitpickers are conditions to comprehend what is a few inches away and will ignore anything beyond two feet. They make a mountain out of a mole hill because that is all they are capable of comprehending.
Being a nitpicker, a nitwit has become a defence mechanism; if you have a mountain of a task before you focusing on the mole hill is an escape from the real task. Of course the News Day reporter knows that Mnangagwa is vote rigging tyrant who top priority is to reward those helping him to rig elections and stay in power. He does not care one bit about the ordinary people, their suffering and deaths.
Indeed, the reporter admitted it himself/herself. "If truth be told, these traditional leaders who only serve the purpose of perpetuating Zanu-PF's stranglehold on power should not be a priority given the challenges facing this economy and the scarcity of resources,” said the reporter.
Our nitwit reporter pretended Mnangagwa is a democratic, who cares about the ordinary people and is only pampering the Chiefs because he “has his priorities mixed up”! He/she did not want to acknowledge that Mnangagwa rigged the recent elections, even with all the many reports saying so, because he/she did not want to deal with the mountain of problems that throws up - how are we going to remove this usurper from office, will the treasonous thugs face justice, etc.
Mnangagwa himself is an expert nitpicker, nitwit, he promised peaceful, free, fair and credible elections and has concentrated on making sure there was no violence and ignored everything else. He has delivered the peace but blatantly violate all the others and yet insists he delivered the whole package.
Mountains will not disappear just because all the mole hills on the base have been levelled. Zimbabwe is a pariah state and pretending that it a a healthy democracy that has its priorities mixed up is not going to change that.
@ Charles Nyati
“We are in this mess because of the Shonas, let us face the truth and not hide,” you say.
In a country where unemployment has soared to 90% and 75% of the population live on US$1.00 a day or less it beggars belief how anyone with even half a brain can ever make such a foolish statement. Are you saying the Shonas constitute the 10% who are gainfully employed.
Zanu PF is a party of corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs. It try to lump all Zanu PF thugs as Shonas is nonsense because these thugs have come from every tribe, region and mix.
The people of Zimbabwe are focused on replacing the Zanu PF dictatorship with a healthy and functional democratic system. It is very disappointing that we have amongst us those who are more interested in stoking the tribal and regional hatred for their own selfish reasons.
@ Elajah Chihota
"Ever since the demise of MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC Alliance is labouring under the erroneous assumption that it has an upper hand in everything. Based on some fictitious reasoning, the party went to town about its prospects of winning the elections arguing that its 80 plus rallies across the country will miraculously mean victory," you say.
"When the dawn of reality came upon them after voting on 30 July Nelson Chamisa and his crew realised that they had lost the plot. Like they had promised prior to elections, Chamisa and his "jecha brigade" thought of spoiling things for President Emmerson Mnangagwa and ZANU PF. The MDC, in a well-coordinated manner went on a rampage in Harare Central Business District (CBD) destroying anything in sight on August 1. Similar attacks were carried out in Gweru and Bulawayo, however, due to the ever-alert security forces, the violence was smoothly quelled."
It is true that MDC is a party of corrupt and incompetent individuals. Still, even you, a seasoned Zanu PF apologist, could not blame the worsen economic meltdown on MDC Alliance. Unless Zanu PF can resolve the economic problems the regime will fall!
“As elected officials, legislators are expected to speak for and air the views of those who elected them into office. They are expected to represent the aspirations of the electorate and engage in debates that give value to the wishes and will of citizens.”
But that is just it; who elected these MPs, Senators and President Mnangagwa himself? All election observers have said the election process was “biased, unfair and not to accepted international standard”!
Zimbabwe is failing to attract investors, who everyone agrees we need to revive the country’s comatose economy, because Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs.
We can pretend Zimbabwe is a functional democracy with a legitimate government that is address the nation’s interest; we will only be fooling ourselves. The reality is we have corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging regime in power that the whole world will not do business with. Until we grasp the nettle and end this curse of rigged elections Zimbabwe will continue to sink deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth Zanu PF landed us in!
“The opposition MPs have been foolishly propagating the notion that President Emmerson Mnangagwa is not the legitimate President. Their failure to recognise President Mnangagwa as the Head of State has been derailing Government programmes and it can only hurt their constituency in the long run,” you argue.
Nonsense, the opposition MPs recognised Robert Mugabe as president although he too was illegitimate since he had rigged the elections to stay in power; that did not stop Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown then. The very fact that Zanu PF apologists are blaming MDC Alliance for the worsening economic situation only goes to show how clueless the regime is.
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