On Friday 1st February Mnangagwa visited Parerenyatwa Hospital and admitted that everything from the floor, walls, windows, hospital beds and bed linen, everything were in a sorry state and needed to be replace or repaired. Parerenyatwa is one of the top four referral government-run hospitals in the country and if it is in this sorry state what more of the smaller provincial and district hospitals and clinics?
Whilst the condition in the country’s private hospitals like the Avenues Hospital is infinitely better than those in the government hospitals still, they too are struggling to provide the five-star health care of the 1980s. It is therefore no surprising that the filthy rich have followed the lead of Robert Mugabe and his family who have gone to Singapore, SA and other places outside Zimbabwe for all their health care needs. In 2012 Mugabe made no fewer than 8 such medical trips at the cost of US$3 million for each trip for an eye check-up. All paid for by the tax payer, of course.
If the US$24 million for that one year alone was spend in building and equipping one Eye Specialist Hospital Mugabe would still have had his five-star eye check-up and whilst he is not using if millions of fellow Zimbabweans would have benefited too!
Mugabe and his family continue to make their very expensive health jaunts to the Far East and has since been joined by many other Zanu PF leaders including Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and others. Last time Mnangagwa and Chiwenga were sick they flew to SA for treatment.
“Pane zvizhinji zvandaona kuti zvido kugadzirwa,” (There are many things I noticed are in bad repair and need fixing.) admitted Mnangagwa.
He was quick to admit all the many things that need fixing but very careful not to say when they will be fixed.
Zimbabwe’s economic situation is worse today than it was over a year ago when Mnangagwa took over the presidency from Mugabe following the November 2017 military coup. Mnangagwa was cocksure his pragmatic “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call would attract the much needed foreign and local investment. That did not happen.
Mnangagwa was pragmatic enough to realise that Mugabe’s in-your face arrogance got the tyrant the cheap applause at the UN but had earned the country the pariah state and alienated it, especially from investors and lenders alike. Still Mnangagwa was naïve in thinking his clarion call, promise to end corruption, promise to scrap many of Mugabe’s misguided indigenisation laws, promise to hold free, fair and credible elections, etc., etc. was enough to convince investors to return. It was not enough, investors wanted to see his words backed by concrete action.
Mnangagwa has yet to arrest even one diamond swindler and recover even one dollar of the US$ 15 billion Mugabe admitted were being “swindled” every few years. By blatantly rigging the July 2018 elections Mnangagwa left no one in any doubt that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state. The regime has effectively chased away all investors; they do not do business a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. The worsening economic situation with all the shortages and social unrest will only save to confirm that Zimbabwe is unstable.
The other day Mnangagwa appointed a 24-member Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) that will advise government on a wide range of sectorial issues including the economy, health, agriculture and ICT. The Council’s task is to revive the country’s economy regardless of Zimbabwe remaining a corrupt and wasteful pariah state. An impossible task as Professor Mthuli Ncube, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, has since learned.
Mnangagwa thought his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call would open the flood gate of investors; it did not. He has since stopped making the call all one will see to remind one of those exuberance “there is nothing I cannot do” days is the trademark multi-coloured scarf he still wears. The stuffing has been knocked out!
No wonder Mnangagwa is very careful to say nothing when the all but collapse public health service, education, the economy, etc. will be fixed; he has no clue. Indeed, he has given to admitting things will get worse before they get better.
Mnangagwa knows that he rigged last July’s elections; he was cocksure he was going to “rig” economic recovery too but that has now proven a bridge too far. He knew he had no choice but to resort to brute force to silence his critics first in the 1 st August protest and now in the last two weeks’ protests. But unless PAC, his cabinet or someone comes up with significant economic improvements he knows the protesters will be back on the street.
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