The dishonest way Zanu PF has continued to hold the sanctions debate is an outrage!
“The impact has been severe and anyone who thinks that sanctions are not harming the economy is surely not telling the truth. We have had many companies directly affected and the examples are too many to mention, like Olivine which had a loan intercepted through the United States' Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In the financial sector, banks such as Standard Chartered Bank and CBZ have lost money directly as a result of sanctions. We can go on-and-on,” Said Minister Mthuli Ncube.
This is just a foolish debate in that the minister is being penny wise but billions of dollars foolish!
There was nothing to stop Olivine getting the loan from China, South Africa and one hundred one other countries, for example.
In 2016, former President Mugabe admitted that Zimbabwe was “swindled out of 15 billion dollars in diamond revenue alone”. When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe, he promised “zero tolerance to corruption”. The regime has failed to arrest even one swindler!
For all his boastful posturing on how he was going to get Zimbabwe’s economy back on track, Minister Ncube has taxed the poorest poor and yet he has yet to get one dollar of the billions of dollars from the swindlers.
Government has failed to explain what happened to US$3 billion of Command Agriculture funds. Our egotistic Minister has had no comment to make on that and many other cases of gross mismanagement and corruption! None! But, surprise, surprise has many, many things to say about sanctions!
'We're going to improve lives of our people,' says Mthuli Ncube.
Zimbabwe has been in economic decline for the last 39 years and throughout that period, without failure, Zanu PF has promised the nation a better tomorrow. When the economic recovery has failed to materialise, the party has never admitted failure but focused, instead, on the mirage in the distance.
Minister Ncube’s vision 2030 middle income status is yet another mirage!
What Zimbabweans must focus on now with renewed energy and resolve is why the country has failed to remove Zanu PF from office after 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule?
We all know the answer: Zanu PF has blatantly rigged elections for the last 39 years. The party blatantly rigged last year’s elections.
What is worse, seemingly upright citizens like Professor Mthuli Ncube, Kirsty Coventry, etc. knew the country was stuck with a corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship; and yet they have again and again agreed to work for the illegitimate regime and propping it up.
It is high time that these seemingly upright citizens, hypocrites who have shamelessly promised the long suffering ordinary Zimbabweans a mirage, are held to account. Since Zanu PF rigs elections, one way of holding the hypocrites’ legs to the fire is to add them to the sanctions list!
16 comments:
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it,” said Niels Bohr to underline mind boggling dual behaviour of electrons and other subatomic particles as both particles and waves!
To paraphrase Bohr “Anyone who believes Minister Ncube will “improve the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans” does not understand what is going on in Zimbabwe.”
Professor Mthuli Ncube knew that rampant corruption and gross mismanagement were the two cancers killing the Zimbabwe economy. When he accepted his appointment as Minister of Finance, he also knew these cancers had been allowed to grow and spread all these last 39 years because those behind the corruption and mismanagement were the Zanu PF ruling elite, the untouchables.
Whatever money Minister Ncube raised from taxing the poorest of the poor was but a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars the country was losing from the extravagant waste of the ruling elite. Indeed the ruling elite’s appetite is insatiable the more the get the greater their demands.
To have any meaningful economic recovery in Zimbabwe, the nation must first satisfy the Zanu PF ruling elite’s greed for power and wealth that is tantamount to filling a black hole!
You are 100% correct, Minister Ncube knew that Mnangagwa rigged last year’s elections and the regime is illegitimate.
“Anyone who believed that Mnangagwa would keep his promise to hold free, fair and credible elections was a village idiot who has failed to understand Zimbabwe’s history!”
Mnangagwa did not only blatantly rig last year’s elections but has gone one step further and dismissed the very idea of holding free, fair and credible elections as “utopian”.
“No amount of propaganda can spin or sugarcoat this gruesome truth. The continued judgment and setting of utopian standards for Zimbabwe, which are never applied in any other jurisdictions, are callous, vindictive and should not be allowed to continue. This is the basis on which we say, enough is enough. Remove these sanctions,” said Mnangagwa.
Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.
Zimbabwe will never have any meaningful economic recovery as long as the country remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs! One does not need to be a Nobel Prize reception to understand this, it is common sense!
@ Zimvigil
As President Mnangagwa goes through his pantomime head of state role, flying off all over the place in expensively-hired planes, Zimbabwe slips into mass starvation and hopelessness impelled by incompetence and corruption.
While he plays with his scarf, the government is desperately trying to repair relations with China after officials seized US$10 million from an escrow account containing funds for the expansion of the Robert Mugabe international airport in Harare.
An escrow account is where funds are held in trust while a transaction is completed. In this case the Zimbabwean officials replaced US dollars with the rapidly depreciating local currency.
IMF, WB and most other western backed financial institutions stopped giving Zimbabwe any financial assistance in 2000 because the country was failing to service its debts. Zanu PF has been lying and blaming sanctions and ZEDRA which were imposed after.
China and other nations, which have never imposed an sanctions on Zimbabwe, have too turned on and off financial assistance to to Harare for the same reason. China had only recently started offering loans and now the tap has been turned off!
China was offering to spend over US$ 1.4 billion, according to some reports. So the country has lost US $1.4 billion because the regime could not be trusted with US$10 million! Anyone who still expects any good to come out of this clueless and illegitimate Zanu PF regime needs his/her head examined!
Zanu PF must be pressured to step down and allow the nation to implement the necessary reforms for free, fair and credible elections! If Zanu PF is still in power come 2023 then we only have ourselves to blame for our lack of foresight!
Mnangagwa's government did not take kindly to the envoy's candid interviews around the issue of sanctions where he described the frenzied campaign against the restrictions as a propaganda escapade meant to mask Harare's failure to implement investment friendly policies, end the scourge of corruption and observe the rule of law.
The issues that Nichols listed that included unchecked human rights violations, abductions of government critics and restrictions on freedom of assembly and association are not new.
Lashing out at diplomats and threatening to expel them for saying the truth will only serve to condemn Zimbabwe into further international isolation.
The government knows what needs to be done and this is not the time for grandstanding.
Zanu PF will do anything the party is asked to do as long as it does not entail giving up its dictatorial powers to stay in power at all cost! Anyone who believe the regime will ever implement any democratic reforms and risk losing power in a free, fair and credible election is naive beyond words.
Zanu PF is aware the worsening economic situation will put the regime under increasing pressure to accept meaningful reforms. The regime does not want attention drawn to the economic and reforms and is now twisting what the US Ambassador said so that this is now seen as a fight over diplomatic etiquette!
In 2000, the regime needed to step up its use of violence to retain political power and using the seizure of white own farms as cover. The regime even used gratuitous violence in the farm seizures to make sure the farm invasions took centre stage. The regime is doing the same with this diplomatic etiquette issue.
@ Hopewell Mauwa
Nichols was certainly riding on the emotions of a polarised nation; and he surely got his audience. The fact, however, is sanctions do hurt — and in a big way.
The currency challenge is arguably the biggest issue affecting Zimbabwe's competitiveness.
Fundamentally, two conditions must be met to address the issue: firstly, there must be some form of external debt bailout or massive injection of foreign inflows and secondly, there must be some internal devaluation (to boost national competitiveness and increase exports).
In a nutshell, that's the formula to fix the issue: when Zimbabwe does eventually solve the cash crisis, these two conditions will have been satisfied.
It is the first condition that restrictive measures seek to undermine. Under Zidera, the US and her allies will vote against any debt bailout until prescribed reforms are met.
The argument, for now, is not whether reforms must happen, neither is it about corruption. It is about the impact of sanctions.
The IMF, WB and all the other western backed financial institutions stopped giving Zimbabwe any financial assistance in 2000, long before ZIDERA, because the country was failing to service its debt. To this day Zimbabwe has cleared its outstanding debt with IMF only and was told in no uncertain terms that it must clear its debts with the rest before financial assistance can be renewed.
Debt cancelation/bailout is not an automatic thing, a country meet certain conditions which will be considered when Zimbabwe is ready to receive financial assistance.
Whatever the country is losing through sanctions it is nothing compared to the haemorrhage caused by corruption and mismanagement. Nothing!
The issue of sanctions have been discussed on countless occasions and the regime and its apologists are bring this back again and again because they have nothing else to blame for the country’s worsening economic meltdown!
Members of Parliament will gobble over $5 million in allowances and expensive accommodation in Victoria Falls where they are holding a 2020 pre-budget seminar, it has been revealed.
The Victoria Falls jaunt comes at a time when the government has been failing to end a two-month strike by doctors that has virtually shut down public health centres.
It also being held in the backdrop of Finance minister Mthuli Ncube's austerity measures that are meant to curtail runaway government expenditure.
The MPs started trooping into Victoria Falls last Wednesday and will spend at least five days in the resort town. They are booked at the five-star Elephant Hills Hotel.
Zanu PF knows that as long as the party allows the opposition to win a few gravy train seats the party will never have to fear the opposition boycotting elections regardless how flawed and illegal the election process got. For those who did not know what winning a gravy train seat meant, now they do!
The revelations point to deep divisions within the government on how to approach United States sanctions on Zimbabwe – with Mnangagwa favouring aggressive diplomacy.
Moyo has been leading Zimbabwe's efforts to re-engage with Western countries whose earlier optimism about Mnangagwa's regime has given way to the kind of belligerence that typified Western diplomats' dealings with longtime leader Robert Mugabe, who was ousted by the military in 2017 in a conspiracy with Mnangagwa.
Moyo is anxious not to end up on a list of 142 individuals and entities subject to a United States travel ban and asset freeze.
In the statement, he threatened that Zimbabwe would expel Ambassador Nichols and stop all contact with the United States embassy.
He appeared particularly angry with comments by Nichols blaming Zimbabwe's economic woes on official corruption, citing the specific case of Sakunda Holdings owned by Kudakwashe Tagwirei which is accused of looting billions of dollars. Tagwirei is a benefactor of the regime, bankrolling some of the broke government's programmes, like the controversial Command Agriculture which a parliamentary committee recently said was a conduit for industrial-scale theft from state coffers.
A decision by the United States to impose sanctions on State Security Minister Owen Ncube, accused of overseeing abductions of government critics and shutting down the internet during fuel protests in January, also rattled the regime coming a day after Mnangagwa led poorly-subscribed anti-sanctions marches on October 25.
The United States embassy is treating the statement issued by Moyo as "bluster", ZimLive understands.
Said a diplomatic source: "Try to imagine a visa office in South Africa, or USAID withdrawing from Zimbabwe. Can you? Can they (the government)? I suspect not."
Government spokesman Nick Mangwana dismissed any suggestion that Moyo was denouncing his own statement.
"Firstly, as you can see from the statement, it was signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Honourable SB Moyo himself. I can assure you that his signature was not forged.
"Secondly, the statement was certainly prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the President or his office did not have an input in its content or tone.
"And lastly, it is in not correct that the minister disowned the statement. Any such suggestions are just mischievous as the circulation of that statement was done per his expressed instructions.”
People like Minister Sibusiso Moyo, Mthuli Ncube, Kirsty Coventry, etc. are key members of this vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF regime and should have been added to the sanctions list the day they were sworn into office. Other like Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, David Coltart and other opposition leaders should too be on the sanctions list for failing to implement the reforms and then participating in elections knowing fully well the process is flawed and illegal.
We, Zimbabweans, have let ourselves down by failing to pile the pressure on these sell-outs who have undermined our efforts to bring about meaningful democratic change in Zimbabwe. People like Sibusiso Moyo, Nelson Chamisa, etc. are not on our side, they just pretend to be.
@ Ambassador Brian Nicholas
BLESSED with abundant mineral resources, rich farmlands, ideal weather, stunning national parks, and a well-educated, industrious people, Zimbabwe should be the economic powerhouse and the breadbasket of southern Africa, and even more popular as a tourist destination and business investment opportunity, as it once was.
What then, is holding Zimbabwe back? It’s not sanctions. There are only 141 Zimbabwean people and companies on the United States sanctions’ list. That’s right, just 141, in a country of 16 million. They are on the list for good reason. These are people who have engaged in corruption, committed human rights abuses, and undermined Zimbabwe’s democratic process. Blaming sanctions is a convenient scapegoat to distract the public from the real reasons behind Zimbabwe’s economic challenges —corruption, economic mismanagement, and failure to respect human rights and uphold the rule of law.
I would like to thank Ambassador Brian Nicholas and the American government for standing firm on this issue of sanctions to pressure this corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF regime to change its ways. Every thinking Zimbabwean out there was very disappointed by the EU for lifted the sanctions and rewarding this regime for blatantly rigging last year’s elections.
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because the country is stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF regime that rigs elections to stay in power. As long as Zanu PF is allowed to rig elections, this nation is not getting out of this hell!
The Americans did the right thing by adding Minister Owen Ncube to the sanctions list the very day Zanu PF was staging its anti-sanctions demos!
Foreign Affairs Minister, Sibusiso Moyo, has had the audacity to threaten to expel Ambassador Nicholas for speaking plainly. Can I suggest that the Minister should now be added to the sanctions list; he has certainly done his bit in rigging last year’s elections and keeping the illegitimate regime in power.
Zimbabwe is desperate for meaningful political change and it is these corrupt, incompetent Zanu PF and MDC sell-outs who are holding the nation to ransom!
This is nonsense, legitimacy is conferred by the people in a free, fair and credible elections. Last year's elections were not free, fair and credible and the idea that the contestants in the flawed elections can confer legitimacy on each other is foolish! But then what does Walter Mzembi know about free, fair and credible elections given he is a Zanu PF thug himself!
Global Institute of Policy Analysis and Research - A local Think Tank predicts Walter Mzembi as one of the key front runners and potential deferred presidential aspirant in the near future.
Well respected academic and former Foreign Affairs and Tourism Minister, Dr Walter Mzembi is a deferred potential Presidential aspirant who could change the Zimbabwe political landscape if given chance to bounce back in the mainstream politics. Studying from a distance the former Foreign Affairs Minister has clearly calibrated his re-entry into politics and may not be in a hurry to get into the mainstream politics. Mzembi a calculative politician, has avoided responding to media taunts, cheap and personal pot shots at his person which has obviously been a project for deliberate besmirching by his enemies in the current administration.
Mzembi is a Zanu PF thug who has never apologised for his role in the decades of Zanu PF tyrannical rule. He is a potential president only if one has to choose from the Zanu PF and MDC short list! Expand the list to include all Zimbabweans and a Zanu PF thug is the last person the nation will want to elect in a free, fair and credible election!
Minister Mthuli Ncube posted a message on his social media account where he announced that civil servants will be able to get a bonus “thanks to austerity”. He, however, did not elaborate on when the bonus will be paid.
What Minister Ncube does not say is how much the civil servants have lost during the austerity period. Worse still, the sacrifice the whole nation has made has been a total waste because it accomplished nothing! The austerity was sold to the nation as “austerity for posterity” but it is increasingly clear that austerity accomplished nothing because the ruling elite, the untouchable, have continued to waste billions of dollars.
Former Minister Forum Gumbo in court for abuse of office in awarding a rental contract to a relative costing US$ 1 million.
The only way Zimbabwe can finally put an end to the corruption and mismanagement at the heart of this Zanu PF regime is for the regime to step down and allow the nation to implement the reforms and stop the curse of rigged elections.
Now diplomatic sources have told ZimLive that Moyo – a well-regarded figure in diplomatic circles – gave signals before and after the statement was issued that it had been foisted on him by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s office.
The diplomatic spat is just Zanu PF punching below the belt! What Ambassador Nicholas said about corrupt and mismanagement is true and factual and since Zanu PF could not deny this the party has decided to accuse the Ambassador of failing to up hold diplomatic etiquette.
Joram Gumbo, a minister in the presidency, was arrested on suspicion of directing a government-owned airline formed in 2017 to use a property owned by his relative as its headquarters, according to a charge sheet seen by Reuters.
Gumbo, who was transport minister at the time, is also accused of abusing his position by forcing the re-appointment of the head of a state-owned company after the official was found guilty of corruption and fired by a tribunal. ZACC said the government had suffered total losses to the tune of $3.7 million.
It is believed that the Zimbabwe government was short changed to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars when Zimbabwe Airways bought the planes from Malaysia. The minister is only being charge for a fraction of the amount and yet he may not even be convicted of the smaller charge!
The people of Zimbabwe must accept that to stamp out corruption and mismanagement the country must first stop Zanu PF rigging elections and thus rigging the justice system to the benefit of the corrupt and incompetent ruling elite!
@ Fact
The question was clear: which is doing more damage to the economy corruption or sanctions. Zimbabwe lost a staggering US$15 billion in diamond revenue according to Mugabe's own admission in 2016. In 2017/18 financial year the country lost US$15 billion of command agriculture funds.
No one has given a credible account of even a few million dollars a year lost due to sanctions!
To therefore say that corruption is doing the same damage as sanctions is foolish to say the least!
Why are you then obsessed about fighting to end sanctions but have done nothing to end corruption? The former is not within your power to end since you have no say in US's foreign policy and the latter is within your power to end since it is a local matter! All this points to one thing - your decision making process is flawed.
@ Sibanengi Dube
MDC MPs Ignore The Poor To Go And Wine In Vic Falls
Such superfluous expenditure came at a time when State hospitals are operating with neither doctors nor painkillers.
It is pleasing to note that a few Zimbabweans are finally waking up to the political reality that MDC leaders having been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb (over 500 were murdered by Zanu PF during the 2008 run-off alone) the elect MDC leaders in power on the understanding they will bring about the democratic changes the nation has been dying for. After 20 years on the political stage MDC has failed to bring about even one democratic change. Not even one!
In his book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe, David Coltart confessed why MDC leaders have been such a complete failure - greed.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” admitted Coltart.
“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”
Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections and hence the reason the nation is stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and murderous regime. We have failed to pressure the regime to step down because on the MDC leaders like Tendai Biti, David Coltart, Nelson Chamisa, etc. who have given the rigged elections some modicum of legitimacy by participating in the flawed and illegal process for selfish gain.
Ian Smith appointed a handful of stooge black MPs and expanded this later with the appointment of Bishop Muzorewa as Prime Minister in the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. History is repeating itself; Nelson Chamisa and his corrupt and incompetent MDC friends are no different from Muzorewa and his fellow black stooges!
@ Man
If MDC was as strong and focused in 1999 as you say, then why did it collapse just six years latter? You are just like someone who claims the house they built was solid, if the house collapse at the onset of the rains, it was not solid! The claim is just nonsensical!
MDC has always had corrupt and incompetent leaders and hence the reason the party has accomplished nothing of note. Those who continue to follow the party are just the usual sheep who will follow anyone regardless how corrupt and incompetent the individual has already proven to be.
If Zimbabwe is ever to get out of the hell-on-earth the nation finds itself stuck in then we, the ordinary people, will have to take time out and be clear what qualities we want in good leaders and then go out there and find such leaders.
"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves," said Jesus.
To claim that in 1999 MDC leaders were as smart as a whip and then dismiss the same individuals as utterly useless in 2005 is just one example of one who is as innocent as a dove but lacks the shrewdness of a snake!
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