Ncube's 2% tax netting $50 m per month but at great cost - poor are dying N Garikai

“A WOMAN suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes collapsed and died outside a food outlet in Bulawayo yesterday afternoon, the second such sudden death in the city within a week,” reported Zimeye.

“The incident occurred in front of a food outlet located at the corner of Fort Street and Leopold Takawira Avenue at around 12PM.”

One does not need to ask why the woman did not take her medication; we all know what the answer will be. Either, she did not have the money to buy the drugs; price of goods and services have soared and to make matters worse some people demand payment in US$ which is simply beyond the reach of most people.

Or, the drugs are not available even if she had the money to pay. There is a shortage of cash, foreign currency, fuel, drugs, everything!

Our egotistic Minister of Finance, Professor Know-It-All (KIA) Mthuli Ncube introduced a 2% levy on all electronic transactions to target the street vendors and the other poor people because “they were not paying any income tax”. They paid the sales tax but that was not enough for Professor KIA, he wanted to squeeze even more from them.

"I am glad to say that this January we managed to collect $50 million from two percent tax. We will spend that money on (Public Sector Investment Programme) PSIP projects and not on salaries," boasted Accountant General Daniel Muchemwa.

The $50 million is collected from the poorest of the poor, who lived on US$1.00 or less per day before the tax and therefore are the more poorer now that Professor KIA takes his pound of flesh off their meagre income. For those living this low below the breadline even bear necessities of life such as one decent meal a day, medicine, etc. become luxuries one is forced to forego and pay the price – a lost life.

The nation will never know how many Zimbabweans are dying every day for want of food, medicine, etc. Like all tyrannical regimes the world over, this Zanu PF is fastidious about keeping such damning statistics as poverty induced mortalities a top secret.  Professor Ncube will boast about the addition $50 million he is squeezing from the poorest of te poor but will deny he is squeezing the very life out of hundreds of them every day!

Mr Muchemwa you do not have to lie about the $ 50 million being used on PSIP projects. The nation’s schools, hospitals, etc. would not be is such an advance stage of rot and decay if government was still spending money on PSIP projects. The $50 million was spent in advance to pay the $25 million for the hired 787-8 Dreamliner jet hired for Mnangagwa and his entourage’s recent Euro-Asia jaunt, to pay flight and hospital bills for the two VP who are both outside the country for health care - a tacit acknowledgement the country’s health care has all but collapsed.

Professor KIA’s voodoo economic policies are not just squeezing the poor to death to subsidise the filthy rich; the Nutty Professor has not only done nothing to stop the wholesale looting by the filthy rich he is not taxing their looted wealth! The filthy rich are untouchable!

It is no secret that people like VP Chgiwenga are the ones who have been looting the nation blind. He certainly did not build his C&M mansion, buy his fleet of posh cars, farms and other assets worth millions of dollars, 45 gold watches etc., etc. from his earning from the army alone. All the other Zanu PF big wigs are the same; Mnangagwa and Mugabe are filthy rich too.   

In 2016 Mugabe admitted that the nation was “swindled of $15 billion in diamond revenue alone”. Not even one swindler has ever been arrested and the scheming Professor KIA devised tax to squeeze the few dollars from the street vendors but failed to come up with anything to at least make sure the swindlers paid tax on the looted wealth, worth billions a month!

Zimbabwe was a middle income nation in 1980 when the country gained her independence and Zanu PF come into power. Ever since the nation’s economy has been in decline; many companies have closed force unemployment rate to soar to the dizzying heights of 90%.

It is inhuman that Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube, should have targeted the country’s poor living on US$ 1.00 or less to increase tax revenue. His 2% revenue has squeezed the poor so hard many are dying of poverty related want. It is politically and morally unacceptable any one should ever have to suffer and die so, especially since the country is in this mess because the regime denied the ordinary people a meaningful say in the governance of the country.

Zimbabwe’s economic and political problems are man-made, bad governance, and it is the ordinary people who have paid dearly for it in lost freedoms, rights and treasure. The price has now gone up considerably; the ordinary people are paying with their very lives too! Enough is enough! It is insane to allow this madness of bad governance to continue. Zimbabwe must and will be ruled by law and not the whim of a dictator!