“Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has
insisted that President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration is committed to
implementing electoral reforms recommended by electoral observers ahead of the
2023 general elections,” reported Bulawayo 24.
“Ziyambi said government was working
towards creating a democratic country.”
Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi you lie, rig
elections, rob the nation blind with all this wholesale looting and whatever
else Zanu PF has decided to do but the one thing you must not do is insult our
intelligence. We know what is going on here and that the regime is up to no
good. How many grand schemes and promises has Zanu PF made these last 39 years
and how many has it ever delivered?
Zanu PF has promised freedom, justice, economically
prosperous and democracy for all time and time again these last 39 years. No
doubt, the party has worked very, very hard to fulfil all its promises and the
results on the ground tell the real truth on how the regime has performed.
Four decades of Zanu PF gross
mismanagement and rampant corruption have left the country’s once vibrant
economy in ruins. Unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90% forcing
millions of our people into abject poverty. ¾ of our people now live on US$ 30 or
less per month in a country whose poverty datum line is US$ 650 per month. ¾!
Before independence, Zimbabwe earned a
fortune from selling quality tobacco, cut flowers and other cash crops. We produced
enough food to feed our own people well with still plenty left over to sell. We
were the breadbasket of Southern Africa. Sadly, that did not last long after
independence.
20 years ago, Mugabe started to seize
farms to give to his cronies mostly, always demanding more loot, wasting it, and
come back to demand for more. Agricultural production plummeted and pulled down
the economy with it, since it was the engine driving the economy. Zimbabwe is
now dependent on imported food-aid, we are so poor we cannot even pay for it.
In a day and age when human ingenuity has
turned deserts into blooming fields and orchards; we, who live in a country
that is for all purposes the Garden of Eden, are starving! There is the damning
testimonial of the sheer breath-taking incompetency of the men and women who
have ruled the country these last 39 years.
Zimbabwe is today the poorest nation in
Africa according to Africa 2017 Wealth Report by New World Wealth.
The only reason Zimbabwe has sunk this
low this fast is because the nation has been stuck with a breathtakingly corrupt
and incompetent regime that rigged elections to stay in power regardless of the
people’s democratic wishes. Ever since getting into power in 1980 Zanu PF has
worked tirelessly to corrupt the country’s state institutions turning them into
Zanu PF departments in all but name whose primary purposed was to ensure there
is no regime change. The party has systematically eroded the people’s freedoms
and human rights, deny them a meaningful say in the governance of the country
and even the right to life, for sole purpose of securing Zanu PF remains in
power no matter what.
The nearest Zanu PF has ever come to
having the de facto one-party dictatorship dismantled was during the 2008 to
2013 GNU. The party was forced to sign the Global Political Agreement agreeing
to the implementation of the raft of democratic reforms design to end the party’s
dictatorial powers. Sadly for the nation but fortuitously for Zanu PF, the MDC
who were expected to implement the reform failed to implement even one reform.
Robert Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with
the gravy train trappings of high office and they, in return, booted the
reforms out of the window. MDC leaders failed to implement even one reform in
five years.
It is naïve to expect Zanu PF to
implement any of the reforms. “You can’t expect us to reform ourselves out of
power!” former Zanu PF minister and chief strategist Professor Jonathan Moyo
once said.
Indeed, only a village idiot would
believe Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi that the party’s insatiable appetite for absolute
power and all the political influence and wealth it brings has all gone.
Mnangagwa and his November 2017 military coup plotters promised to hold free,
fair and credible elections but failed to implement even one token reform
before last year’s elections. We are being asked to believe the regime will do
so before the 2023 elections!
“Mnangagwa is committed to implementing
the reforms!” Since he insists last year’s elections were “free, fair and
credible”, what reforms will he implement?
Last year’s elections were not free, fair
and credible and so Zanu PF has no mandate to govern the country. The only way
out is for the party to step down, to allow an interim administration to
implement the reforms.
Zanu PF did not blatantly rig last year’s
elections so it can reform itself out of office!
16 comments:
Of course, President Mnangagwa is 100% committed to implementing all the democratic reforms to guarantee free, fair and credible elections in 2023. He rigged last year's elections to make sure that he is in power and thus make sure all the reforms necessary to stop him rigging 2023 elections are implemented. This is assuming that President Mnangagwa NOW agrees that he blatantly rigged last year's elections.
If Mnangagwa still insist last year's elections were free, fair and credible then there will be no reforms for him to implement beyond some token reforms here and there.
One reform would be to create the official head of the opposition party as a cabinet post complete with the perks. If Zanu PF had done this, it would have silenced one Nelson Chamisa a long, long time ago.
The United States has slapped former army general Ansleem Sanyatwe with sanctions for human rights violations during the 1 August 2018 violence where soldiers shot and killed six people while 35 were injured.
Sanyatwe who headed the Presidential Guard at tee time, was put in charge of a Military unit sent to respond to violence that broke out in Harare over delayed release of the 2018 election results.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa recently retired Sanyatwe from the army and appointed him a Zimbabwe's ambassador to Tanzania.
"No one has been held accountable for these heinous acts. The people of Zimbabwe deserve better," said the US through its Embassy in Harare.
Zanu PF is a party that is used to doing what it damn well pleases and get away with a slap on the wrist, if even that. The American have refused to lift the sanctions and now they are even following the August shooting with more sanctions at the time the regime thought its re-engagement efforts would start to yield results!
Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections and the only logical thing now is for the regime to step down to allow the nation to implement the reforms and hold fresh free, fair and credible elections. The regime must not be left in any doubt that in the end it will step down!
The electricity tariff for domestic consumers be increased from an average of ZWL9.86c/kWh to an average of ZWL27c/kWh (approximately USc3/kWh), which is subsidised; with immediate effect.
This is nearly a whopping 60% increase in electricity charges in a country in which 90% of these consumers are unemployed, they eke out a living from the informal sector.
Worse still, the 60% increase in the power tariff will attract a new round of price of similar increases of goods and services and thus fuelling the dreaded hyperinflation. Inflation surged from 75% to 175% in the first month of passing SI 142 in June; by the end August it will be 200%, at least. ZESA would be asking for another tariff increase and as for the ¾ of the population living on US$30 or less per month they will be dying for want of food, medicine, etc.!
It is all very well for Minister Mthuli Ncube to be calling for these “with immediate effect” increases in tariff and prices he should be considering what is their effect on inflation – the gene he let out of the bottle by passing SI 142 and his many ill-advised policies!
Electricity charges will go up from 9,86 cents (US1 cent) per kilowatt hour (kWh) to 27 cents/kWh (3 US cents).
Taxation of fuel imports more than doubled from 19% and 16% of the landed cost for petrol and diesel to 45% and 40%, meaning that pump prices will significantly rise from current levels.
Ncube announced an increase in government service fees as well as fresh taxation for electronic transactions.
For tollgates, light motor vehicles would now be required to pay $10 up from $2, mini-buses $15 up from $4 and conventional buses will now pay $20 up from $5. Heavy vehicles and haulage trucks will now pay $25 and $50, respectively.
Route authority application fees have been increased from $25 to $125, operator's licence application fee have been reviewed to $250 from $50. Original motor vehicle plates now cost $400 from $80, while changing number plates will attract a similar fee.
Minister Mthuli Ncube was warned that his voodoo economic policies such as the 2% electronic transaction tax aid at the poorest of the poor whilst letting the wholesale looting to continue and the banishing of the foreign currencies as legal tender would cause inflation. He did not listen. Now he has let out inflation, the gene, out of the bottle he is the one turbo charging it with his foolish price increases. 300% electricity tariff hike, 500% tollgate charge, 500% route application fees, etc. are only going to fuel inflation and destroy the little economic activity still going on!
Minister Mthuli Ncube, you are not reviving the economy; you are killing it!
War veterans in Mashonaland East on Wednesday demanded that their pension benefits be raised to match salaries of serving army lieutenant-colonels.
Speaking during a public meeting by the Calisto Gwanetsa-led Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Security held at Mbuya Nehanda Hall in Marondera, war veterans said the current economic conditions have eroded their meagre earnings, hence a hike of at least $2 000 or an equivalent to a lieutenant-colonel's salary would suffice.
One of the war veterans, Victor Chinyama said their current $313 monthly pension payout was a disservice and mockery to the welfare of the liberation fighters.
"The current benefits of $313 is too little for our welfare. It is not enough given the current inflation rate. We need our monthly monies to be raised to an equivalent of a lieutenant-colonel's salary. Some are saying it's around $2 000 or somewhere there," he said.
Mugabe sweet talked many war veterans into believing the Zanu PF dictatorship would deliver economic prosperity for all and many believed him. In the late 1990s when the economy is in trouble and many people faced serious economic hardships whilst the few ruling elite were living pretty, many of the war veterans caught up in the rising tide of poverty started to grumble. Mugabe stepped in and paid them the Z$ 50 000 graduate plus other allowances. For the next two decades war veterans were Mugabe’s foot-soldiers doing the bulk harassing, beating, raping and some even murdered innocent Zimbabweans for the sole purpose of keeping Mugabe and Zanu PF in power.
Zanu PF did not pay the war veterans all their promised pension, school fees, etc., especially between elections when the party did not need their services as thugs for hire. It is no surprise therefore that most of the war veterans and as poor as church mice!
The real surprise is that there are still war veterans who still fail to see the reality that the Zanu PF dictatorship was doomed to fail because it was wasteful of the nation’s material and human resources. By denying the populous their basic rights including the right to a meaningful vote to impose the dictatorship the war veterans were making certain their own suffering.
Now that government has rediscovered the art of creating money out of nothing; the war veterans will get a hefty increase in their pension, they may even get Z$ 2 000 they are asking for, but by the end of the year it too will be worthless!
It is not the pension increase the war veterans should be demanding but the end of the doomed dictatorship because the country will never escape from this hell-on-earth as long as the country remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging and murderous thugs!
He said: Currently, the hospital is facing critical problems in this aspect of electricity and water supply.
Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital operations are being hampered to the extent of losing patients as a result of load-shedding by ZESA.
Collet Mawire also revealed that the hospital is understaffed, having 79 nurses out of an ideal complement of 350, while there are five specialist doctors out of a possible 10.
If things are this bad at the provincial hospital how much worse at the smaller hospitals in the rural back waters! Our health care service collapsed a long, long time ago we, the people, have not admitted it much less demand that something is done about it. It is for us to complain about it, the ruling elite know the health service has collapse hence the reason they have been going to SA, India, China, Singapore, etc. for all their health care needs!
40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption by this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF has destroyed the country’s once vibrant economy. We all know that country is stuck with this corrupt and incompetent regime because it rigs elections to stay in power. And even now with people dying unnecessarily those is position of power and authority still say nothing of the root cause of the problem. They pretend this is a local and isolated ZESA power cut problem.
Zimbabwe’s problem of bad governance will not go away and burying our heads in the sand these last 40 years has dragged us deeper and deeper in the abyss.
@ Dumisani Muleya
Keynesian economics tells us, first of all, consumption depends upon disposable income. Second, disposable income and consumption have a symbiotic relationship; consumption increases with income growth. As income increases so too does spending and consumption. This affects aggregate demand and production.
Finance minister Mthuli Ncube yesterday suspended the release of annual inflation figures until February next year under the guise of inflation rebasing and other technicalities, effectively trying to hide away the ugly face of price escalations and economic meltdown. But he admitted negative economic growth and recession are now a reality.
A few moons ago Professor Mthuli Ncube tried to hide the reality of rising inflation by claiming people were confusing annual inflation rate with monthly inflation rate. His rather convoluted calculation showed that inflation was coming down and he even claimed that inflation by the end of this year 2019 would be below 10%. He is the one now fuelling hyperinflation with him approving 200% electricity tariff increases, 400% tollgate charge increases, etc. He is now suspending the release of inflation rate figures because even he cannot cook up the figures to hide the reality that the country is in serious economic trouble.
The international community remains sceptical and wary. They are unwilling to underwrite the corrupt and incompetent Mnangagwa administration's faltering project. All in all, it has undeniably been a disastrous year, an annus horribilis for Mnangagwa.
You are 100% correct, the international community are not going to underwrite this doom Zanu PF regime, even the addition of Chamisa and other MDC leaders into the regime will make them change their mind. The only way out of this mess is for Zanu PF to step down - an unthinkable prospect for the regime but it is either an orderly step down or the Gadaffi high road.
Repression still remains. Political activists and human rights defenders continue to be hounded. Dissenting voices are being crushed, while innocent civilians have been maimed and killed in street protests.
Nothing has been done to bring offenders to justice and compensate victims, for instance, on the August 1, 2018 and January 2018 killings. The real tragedy is that those in the military responsible for the bloodshed have not been held to account.
The other issues are reforms and international isolation. Although government is pushing a broad reform agenda, it is largely piecemeal and superficial, let alone convincing and impactful.
According to a former aide who worked for Mnangagwa when he was vice president between 2014-2017, the president has reportedly found a bolthole in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he is said to have been offered State protection should the need arise, after befriending the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
“I understand he also approached China in August 2018, but they were evasive and shut the door on him because of the fallout that has happened between him and VP Chiwenga and the military as a whole. There are claims that he is moving his money to the UAE and already owns assets there, including a private jet and a penthouse somewhere in Dubai. The UAE will be ideal to protect his financial wealth unlike China, where there is risk of his bank accounts being frozen, like has happened to Mugabe whose monies in China have been forfeited to Zimbabwe although it’s not significant because his family was banking in Hong Kong and Singapore.”
Mnangagwa has openly boasted that his UAE visit in March, was fully paid by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. “I was in Abu Dhabi where I was invited by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi,” said Mnangagwa while opening a Zanu PF Central Committee session in the capital.
For the record the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi must know that when there regime change in Zimbabwe finally; we, the people of Zimbabwe, will not leave one stone unturned to hold those responsible for all the looting, vote rigging and murderous tyranny in Zimbabwe in the last 40 years. Whatever deal the Crown Prince has agreed with Mnangagwa he must know that it is nothing to us; Mnangagwa is accountable to the people of Zimbabwe and until they get their pound of flesh he is going nowhere. If the Crown Prince is offering Mnangagwa protection from justice then he is crossing swords with us.
We are not going to have millions of Zimbabweans whose lives Mnangagwa has made hell-on-earth continue suffering whilst the thugs responsible for their misery continue to live in luxury off the nation’s looted wealth. We need to send a clear message to all Zimbabweans that those who abuse their power and authority will be held to account soon or latter. The last message we want to send out is that there are bolthole for them to escape justice.
@ Shepherd Mahachi
“The Zimbabwe National Army will never stage a second coup for fear of imminent reprisals from the international community. Nobody in their right sense would ever support a military government. Consider what is happening right now, where the present government is viewed as a military one and the lack of support and aid from the international community.”
What you are saying makes a lot of sense but given the reality that Mnangagwa has failed to revive the economy Zanu PF thugs know the present situation the party hanging on to power regardless is unsustainable. The party is facing a hard choice of booting Mnangagwa or else have Mnangagwa and the rest of them booted out. They would be tempted to take their chance and hijack a people’s revolution as the soldiers in Sudan have done.
Zimbabwe’s opposition will only be too glad to cut a deal with the coup plotters as we saw happen following the November 2017 coup. Chamisa and his MDC friends are desperate to get back on the gravy train, they will accept the role of tea-boys as long as that comes with a ministerial title and perks.
Zimbabweans must not just watch Zanu PF thugs but also the sell-out opposition who are the ones who have done everything to keep Zanu PF thugs in power these last decade!
@ Fairbridge
Not so fast, Chamisa and his MDC friends are only to glad to let Zanu PF thugs back into power by the back door. What do you think their proposed new GNU is about!
“Given this transition, Zimstat will defer publication of year-on-year inflation while building up data of prices in mono-currency for a period of 12 months to February 2020,” said Ncube.
“This will ensure that we compare like with like in terms of currency regimes.”
This is just a feeble excuse for burying the bad news of the soaring inflation. The people know the country is already in hyperinflation territory and they can see the prices of goods and services soaring, the shortages of fuel, bread, medicine, etc. and will know the country’s economy is in free fall. They really do not need the, very often messaged, Zimstat figures to tell them the country’s economic meltdown is getting worse, they know that!
The United States has placed a former Zimbabwe army general on the sanctions list over the killing of six civilians during protests that followed last year’s disputed presidential elections.
Former head of the presidential guard Anselem Sanyatwe commanded the troops that opened fire on people protesting against the delayed release of president election results in Harare on August 1, 2018
This is a piece of good news, Zanu PF has the habit of using these braindead individuals to do its dirty work. It is high time that these braindead individual are reminded that they will be held to account, braindead or not!
Zanu PF rigged last year's elections and therefore the party have no mandate to govern the country and therefore the regime is illegitimate. We should and must ask the regime to step down, this is not "unreasonable". Indeed Zanu PF has to step down if we are ever going to get out of this mess.
If Zanu PF is allowed to stay in power, be it own its own or in a new GNU with MDC, we can be 100% certain that Mnangagwa and company will rig the 2023 elections because they will never ever implement any reforms.
It is high time Zimbabweans started talking of wanting free, fair and credible elections and mean what they say. It is high time Zimbabwe stopped appeasing Zanu PF by allowing the party to rig elections and reward the thugs with absolute power. It is high time Zimbabweans accepted the reality that we cannot have good and competent government and yet still keep the corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging and murderous Zanu PF thugs in power.
Zimbabwe is currently generating around 900 MW of electricity against a demand of around 1,600 MW. Power generation has particularly been affected this year due to reduced dam water levels in Kariba, which supplies water to the Kariba South Hydro Power Station, currently the country’s biggest power plant with an installed capacity of 1050 MW.
Since independence Zimbabwe has to maintain the power generation and transmission plant it inherited from Ian Smith, much less invest in new plant. The country has relied on imported power but would not pay the bill. Well the chickens have finally come home to roost! The energy shortfall has happened at a time when the country is facing a multitude of other problems.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic problems is the nation’s failure to remove Zanu PF from office even when it was clear the regime is corrupt and incompetent. The essence of free, fair and credible elections is that the electorate should be able to remove those in power. The fact that Zanu PF has been able to blatantly rig elections and stay in power regardless of the people’s democratic wishes is the elephant in the room; Zimbabweans have ignore the problem for 40 years and have paid dearly for it.
Zimbabweans can no long afford to ignore that Zanu PF is a party of corrupt and incompetent, vote rigging thugs. The country’s worsening economic problems can only be addressed by having a good and competent government. Zanu PF must step down to allow the nation to implement democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. Zanu PF must step down; the nation’s very survival is now at stake and therefore this is not negotiable.
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