“Twenty Thirty Over the past year, there has been much talk about Vision 2030, our national growth strategy to transform Zimbabwe into a Prosperous and Empowered Upper Middle Income Society by the end of the next decade,” started off Professor Mthuli Ncube, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance.
“There has been less talk, however, about how we are going to get there, and the specific steps we are planning to take. Government is asking for patience and understanding from its citizens, and it is therefore important that we clearly communicate not only where we are going, but also how we will get there.”
He then went on to discuss at length where we are going and how we are to get there.
Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party dictatorship per se only Zanu PF leaders have a meaningful say on where the nation is going and how it will get there. We started as a middle income nation in 1980, Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies promised the nation mass economic prosperity, “Gutsva Ruzhinji” (Mass Prosperity) and 38 years down the line Zimbabwe is the poorest nation in Africa.
Even when it was as clear as day that where the nation was going was mass poverty and not mass prosperity, the Zanu PF dictatorship stubbornly maintained our destiny was still “Gutsva Ruzhinji!” and it knew exactly how to get there.
So all these articles from Minister Ncube, Mnangagwa and others in Zanu PF assuring the people that vision 2030 is a certainty is nothing new; people have heard all that before. What the nation is rightly worried about is not so much where we are going and how we will get there but rather What if it is as clear as day we are going somewhere else? What then?
It was as clear as day by the late 1990 that the nation was heading for mass poverty and not mass prosperity but the nation has continued to sink deeper and deeper into economic despair because the ordinary people were powerless to force change of direction. Because Zimbabwe was and still is to this day a de facto one-party dictatorship in which the ordinary people were denied their freedoms and basic rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
Professor Ncube, if Zimbabwe was your own personal property then you have every right to do as you pleased. It is not your personal property nor is it Mnangagwa and his junta’s personal property. Zimbabwe belongs to every Zimbabwean with the legal right to call himself or herself that and their descendants. As such, every Zimbabwean has a right to a meaningful say to where the country is going and how it is going to get there. The meaningful say will ensure they have a right to disagree with those in power and if need be remove them in a free, fair and credible election.
I know you, Professor Ncube; and many others like Kirsty Coventry, the 24 President Advisory Council members and many other Zimbabwean professionals now serving in this Zanu PF regime in various capacities; have been very careful to focus on your area of expertise and not to say very little on whether last year’s elections were free, fair and credible. The regime has recruited you especially for your expertise in your field and it is counting on you to convince the populous that you will delivery vision 2030, for example.
But even you have to admit that delivering 2030 will dependent on the other ministers performing to the set targets, for example. It they fail to do so vision 2030 will remain forever a mirage. And hence the reason why the people are rightly concerned about making sure they restore their right and power to have a meaningful vote and who governs the country.
Zanu PF rigged last July’s elections just as readily as the party has rigged past elections. Without a meaningful vote the people will have no meaningful way of holding Zanu PF to account which the primary reason the nation failed to end Zanu PF’s rule even when it was as clear as day the party was dragging the nation into the hell-on-earth we now find ourselves in.
It is shocking that you, Professor Mthuli Ncube and many of your fellow intellectuals now serving in Zanu PF, with all your academic qualifications and intellectual enlightenment you have failed to appreciate the critical importance why Zimbabwe needs to end the curse of dictatorial rule, restore the all individual freedoms and rights of all Zimbabweans as the pre-requisite to peace, justice and economic prosperity. If one assumes that you are genuinely committed to rescuing the nation from the economic mess we are in; you are shockingly naive to believe you can achieve meaningful economic recovery, much less prosperity, whilst the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship remains untouched!
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The late Bernard Chidzero, Zimbabwe's second Minister of Finance after independence, had a grasp of basic economic principles, had common sense, had humility and most important of all had empathy for the ordinary men.
Our present Minister projects the imagine of one who would have taught Chidzero a thing or two in economic but that is about all that one can say about our Professor Ncube. If he had common sense he would have never hired the 787-8 Dreamliner Jet cost $74 000 an hour to go on a 10 day begging jaunt!
He has no empathy for the long suffering Zimbabweans living of US$1.00 a day; way, way below the US$650 per month poverty datum line. His 2% tax on all electronic financial transactions if to squeeze money from the vendors living on US$1.00 or less a day. Meanwhile he has not lifted a finger to stop those looting diamonds and other resources and costing the nation as much as $2 billion a month!
As for common sense, our Professor Minister has none. He has completely failed to grasp the obvious reality that Zimbabwe's pathetic economic performance of the last 38 years was not due to his successors' failure to have sound economic policies alone but rather to the dysfunctional political system, the de facto one-party dictatorship, which imposed voodoo - economic policies on the nation. To therefore blubber on and on about his so called Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) as the vehicle to deliver Vision 2030 economic prosperity whilst ignoring the reality of the dysfunctional political system it is supposed to operate in is nonsense.
Professor Ncube’s common sense, like that of Kirsty Coventry, the 24 President Advisory Council members, etc., has been stifled by his Zeppelin Airship size ego and insatiable greed for power and influence. When Mnangagwa dangled the ministerial appointment before Ncube he was completely hypnotised and could not resist.
I totally agree with those arguing the people like Professor Ncube should be added to those on the targeted sanctions, they are no different from the hardline Zanu PF members who are on the list in that they are all propping the corrupt and tyrannical regime for their own selfish gratification regardless of the suffering and deaths the regime is bringing to the common people.
Our Professor Know-It-All Ncube refuse acknowledge that Zimbabweans have endured as best as the can a lot of pain and many have lost their very lives these last 38 years and yet the nation has not prospered but grown poorer instead. “No prosperity without pain!” As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there will be a lot of pain poverty and more pain!
“We as politicians are the trouble makers. We are responsible for the agony of our nation. I am ready any moment to meet Mnangagwa to resolve issues affecting Zimbabwe, any delay is a life lost,” said Chamisa.
Chamisa you are right in so far as admitting that your politicians are the “trouble makers”. The curse for Zimbabwe is that the nation has been stuck with you lot for decades because we do not have a healthy and functional political system that has allowed the nation to get rid of the corrupt and incompetent politicians even when there is a mountain of evidence to prove just how utterly useless the politicians are!
Zanu PF thugs have been in power 38 years and counting and have dragged the nation deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth. They have eroded the ordinary people’s freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life itself. Zanu PF thugs have rigged elections to secure their iron grip on power. The nation has been stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical regime for 38 years with the tragic economic and political consequences we see today.
There have been many golden opportunities to end Zanu PF’s corrupt and tyrannical rule but most of these fell to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends who have wasted them all. MDC has been on the Zimbabwe political stage for the last 19 years but have nothing to show for it.
The best course of action for Zimbabwe is for the illegitimate Zanu PF regime, it rigged last year’s elections, to step down. This will create the political space the nation needs to appoint an interim administration that will implement democratic reforms leading to free, fair and credible elections.
The corrupt and incompetent MDC Alliance must just step aside. “I am ready any moment to meet Mnangagwa to resolve issues affecting Zimbabwe, any delay is a life lost,” said Chamisa. He and his MDC colleagues failed to implement even one reform in five years during the last GNU; it will be foolish to trust them to do it this time. All Chamisa and his friends are dying for is to be back on the gravy train again!
Zimbabwe is burning and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are fight over a rattle! Everyone agrees that there was no verified voters' roll and a number of the V11 forms were never released; so the results could not be verified and traced. The whole election process was so flawed and illegal the result by either Zanu PF or MDC Alliance is whatever each want to be and they will never verify or trace it. In short there is no basis for either side to claim victory but not with these two fools. Each is trying to cheat!
The best solution for the country is to revisit the raft of reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU and implement the reforms. It will be a waste of time to get either Zanu PF or MDC involved in the new arrangement.
“Attending the National Leadership Breakfast meeting at the HICC in Harare organised by the churches. The efforts by the churches to bring together the nation’s political protagonists should be commended and supported,” said Douglas Mwonzora.
Zanu PF and MDC formed the GNU is 2008 to 2013 and yet failed to get even one democratic reform implemented. Other than getting Chamisa and a few other MDC Alliance leaders like Mwonzora himself a seat on the gravy train these talks between Zanu PF and MDC are a total waste of time and resources!
A British parliamentarian has dismissed utterances made by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces that the 17 protestors who were killed during the January riots were shot by civilians who stole army and police uniforms.
United Kingdom Member of Parliament and the chair of Britain’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe, Kate Hoey said those claims are ‘nonsense’.
MP Hoey is right, it is nonsense coming from a regime that has been lying for so long and getting away with it; the regime no believes it can say anything and people will believe it. The biggest lie at present is that last year’s elections were free and fair and that Zanu PF is the legitimate government.
Mnangagwa and his junta are illegitimate and they must step down. All this talk of dialogue with an illegitimate regime is a nonsense.
Zanu PF is using brute force to cow the populous into submission this is holding the nation to ransom pure and simple and we must denounce is and resist it!
ZEC has failed to produce a verified voters' roll, failed to make public a number of V11 forms, etc. these are all serious issues that have made it impossible to consider the elections free, fair and credible.
What is surprising here is that MDC Alliance are now using the short comings to justify their own claim that Chamisa won the presidential elections. This is nonsense because ZEC did not run two different elections. The failure to produce a verified voters roll, failure to release V11 forms, etc. affected Zanu PF candidates and opposition candidates alike. Chamisa claims that he got 2.5 million votes and yet failed to attach all the V11 forms to show were the figure came from.
People have rightly rejected Mnangagwa's claim to be the winner because no one could trace and verify the ZEC tally. By the same token we must reject Chamisa's tally because we cannot verify and trace his tally either.
Chamisa's position that the elections were rigged because he lost but are free and fair if he is declared the winner is a nonsensical one. Elections must be condemn if the process is flawed and illegal, which is what happened, and not on the basis of who won.
Chamisa's stance underlines why he and his MDC friends must not be allowed to play an meaningful role going forward. They cannot be trusted to implement the democratic reforms because they not implement any if they think they will win the elections regardless which is certainly one of the reasons why they failed to implement even one reform during the 2008 GNU.
Reforms must be implemented to stop Zimbabwe slipping back into the same trap of rigged elections not only next elections but for generations to come!
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