“The achievements scored so far by President Emerson Mnangagwa's New Dispensation have raised a ray of hope that Vision 2030 is indeed possible, more so if unity of purpose prevails in the country,” claimed Grace Chekai in a Bulawayo 24 article.
“Inaugurated as the President of Zimbabwe on 24 November 2017 after the late former President Robert Mugabe had stepped down, President Mnangagwa promised Zimbabweans that brick by brick and stone upon stone, the New Dispensation would rebuild the country which had been in the doldrums for almost two decades.”
Zimbabwe’s economy is not emerging from the doldrums and is, instead, sinking even deeper and deeper into the abyss.
When Mnangagwa got into power after the 2017 military coup, he was right in focusing all his regime’s effort in attracting foreign investors and lenders as the only way the country would revive its comatose economy. “Zimbabwe is open for business!” was the New Dispensation’s clarion call and its flagship policy.
Come 15 November 20202, it will be exactly three years since the military coup, and the expected flood of investors has not happened. “Zimbabwe is open for business!’” is well and truly dead in the water. If the truth be told, the policy was doomed to fail because it was based on the lie the New Dispensation was opening the country for business when it was doing no such thing.
Mnangagwa promised the New Dispensation will end the scourge corruption; he did not. He promised to hold free and fair elections, yet stubbornly refused to implement even one token reform and went on to blatantly rig the July 2018 elections.
Zimbabwe is still a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs; just as it was during Mugabe’s days. All this talk of New Dispensation is just empty rhetoric. And investors and lenders are a shrewd and savvy lot, they saw through all this New Dispensation, “Zimbabwe is open for business!”, etc. for what it is - just bullshit!
True enough, Zimbabwe can bankroll its own economic recovery. The late Zimbabwe dictator, Robert Mugabe, admitted the country was “swindled out of US$15 billion in diamond revenue alone!” He never arrested any of the swindlers nor recover one swindled dollar. Mnangagwa has not done any better either.
"Let me be very clear. If you engage in or promote corruption, you will be arrested and prosecuted. There are no excuses for corruption. No one is above the law,” twittered Mnangagwa.
This is just another rhetorical bullshit! What law? In Zimbabwe, corruption has been institutionalised; both parliament and cabinet are aware and have approved the wholesale looting of the nation’s resources.
A 2012 parliamentary committee led by, now late, Edward Chindori Chininga shed some light on why corruption in the diamond industry was so rampant - there are no record of who the operators and their local partners are, no record of the quantity and quality of diamonds mined, no record of who bought the diamonds and how much they paid, etc., etc.
Both Mugabe and now Mnangagwa has never arrested any of the diamond swindlers because the swindlers were allowed to disregard all the laws and practices governing all other normal business operations. Zanu PF cabinet had approved looting and parliament itself has been aware of this for donkey years and has done nothing to stop it.
In Zimbabwe, corruption is rampant! It has been legalised and institutionalised, hence the reason it is now damn near impossible to uproot, at least not as long as Zanu PF remains in power.
“In the journey to an upper middle income economy, President Mnangagwa has undertaken to deal with corruption and effect institutional reforms, empowering the youths and women as well as prioritising infrastructure development among other sectors,” continue Chekai.
So after three years of the New Dispensation even a Zanu PF apologist like Grace Chekai, with the gift of seeing imaginary signs of economic recovery, had no choice but content with “Mnangagwa has undertaken to deal with corruption”. She did not dare say he had DELT much less ENDED corruption because the stake contrast with the reality on the ground would have been blindingly obvious.
Since the 2017 military coup, the Zimbabwe National Army and its Russian partners, one of the established diamond mining partnership, have signed a new agreement to mining Platinum. The same, no records kept, rules will apply.
Two months ago, former Minister of Health, Obadiah Moyo, was named in a US$60 million Drax scandal. The Minister has since lost his job. The scandals involving Zanu PF bigwigs usually come to nothing and, signs are, this too will fizzled out particularly since one of Mnangagwa’s sons has been fingered.
It is widely believed that as much as 75% of Zimbabwe’s gold is being smuggled out of the country. Last week Henrietta Rushwaya, a Zimbabwean businesswoman was arrested at the airport and accused of trying to smuggle 6 kg gold worth US$ 330 000.
Rushwaya's alleged accomplice Gift Karanda has reportedly told the Police the gold belonged to Mnangagwa’s wife and her her son. The First Lady and the son have denied having anything to do with the case. Nothing new there!
President Mnangagwa was one of the senior Zimbabwean leaders named in the UN report accused of looting diamonds and other resources from the DRC. He denied the looting. Sadly, so far at least, he was never brought before any court of law to see if he would still deny it under oath.
However, there is no denying that corruption is as rampant under Mnangagwa as it was under Mugabe. And, as long as Zanu PF remains in power there will be no chance of ending it since those in high office are the Godfathers of corruption. To end corruption we must end Zanu PF's iron grip on power; we must implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
Our fight for economic recovery will only start after the fight for free, fair and credible elections and good governance is won and secured. There will be no meaningful economic recovery whilst Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs. None!
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There is a shocking level of arrogance, cynicism and down right stupid in Mnangagwa’s twitter.
"Let me be very clear. If you engage in or promote corruption, you will be arrested and prosecuted. There are no excuses for corruption. No one is above the law," he twittered.
Mnangagwa, of all people, KNOWS that the Army, Police, CIO and a few select individuals who were granted diamond mining concessions are not subject to the usual corporate laws and regulations of keeping an record of their business activities and paying corporate and individual taxes. It is therefore arrogant and cynical to say no one is above the law when you have already seen to it that the corrupt individuals are above the law.
Of course, Mnangagwa is being his usual stupid self in believing his own rhetorical foolishness. He was cocksure everyone believed his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” bullshit he went to town selling it. The world will remember him and his cronies marching in unison in their multi-coloured scarfs like a family of Southern ground hornbill.
No investor ever believed the “Zimbabwe is open for business!” nonsense. After a year, most of hornbills abandoned their brights red wattles in a tacit acknowledgement “Zimbabwe is open for business!” Mnangagwa and one or two others have continue to wear the wattle but even they now know the policy is long dead and buried.
In say Mnangagwa was “undertaken to deal with corruption”, Grace Chekai was acknowledging that Mnangagwa would never end corruption because corruption has been institutionalised and he is powerless to end it.
It is interesting to note that the Edward Chindori Chininga report was presented in the GNU parliament and MDC leaders said nothing.
Indeed, at one point Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was dispatched to investigate what was going on in Marange and Chiadzwa and he gave the operation a clean bill of heath. A few weeks after that he was seen on an Ocean Cruise Liner - living it. He certainly did not pay for the trip out of his own pocket!
“The MDCA is a leading party in the country. We are the government in waiting that won the 2018 Presidential election vote by more than 2.6 million.
“People have confidence in the leadership of President Nelson Chamisa. He is the people’s Hope and he is ready to lead Zimbabwe to the promised land. Zimbabwe need a People’s Government urgently to resolve the crisis we are facing as a people,” said Clifford Hlatywayo.
“Morgan Tsvangirai is a flawed and indecisive character,” said US Ambassador to Zimbabwe 2004 to 2007, Chris Dell, in a leaked cable back to Washington. The events of the 2008 to 2013 GNU were to prove Ambassador Dell was right beyond all reasonable doubt.
Indeed, MDC’s failure to get even one democratic reform implemented in five years of the GNU proved beyond all doubt that the entire MDC leadership was breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent. It is amazing that MDC leaders cannot even make up their minds on whether or not the July 2018 elections were free, fair and credible.
3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote. ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, for Pete’s sake. The whole election process lacked transparency, counting was full of errors and nothing could be traced or verified. It is shocking that MDC Alliance ignored all these glaring irregularities and illegalities to endorse the parliamentary and local elections as being free, fair and credible.
The MDC A only challenged the presidential results and not on the grounds of the 3 million denied the vote, the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll or any of the other illegalities. The challenge on the basis that ZEC’s vote count was wrong. ZEC admitted in its affidavit that it did not have all the V11 forms, the summary of the vote count at each Polling station. Chamisa argued the Court to accept his vote count although he too failed to produce all the V11 forms.
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because the country is stuck, for 40 years and counting, with a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship. Instead of focusing on implementing the reforms to ensure free and fair elections the nation has been dragged into meaningless elections time and time again all because MDC sell-outs cannot make up their minds on reforms.
MDC A will participate in the 2023 elections with no reforms in place and, as usual, complain the elections were rigged. We are stuck in this nightmare not only because of Zanu PF but because of MDC sell-outs too!
“We are the government in waiting that won the 2018 Presidential election vote by more than 2.6 million!” Yeah right! You expect the world to believe that when you cannot even produce the V11 forms to show where that came from!
“The Zimbabwean economy has vaulted back to the multi-currency regime that prevailed between 2009 and 2018 with the US Dollar transactions gradually growing in the formal market while dominating trade in the informal sector. The country's hopes for a mono-currency were swiftly squashed by low levels of confidence in the Zimbabwean Dollar and record inflation (659.4% in September) caused by excessive money supply. “
This is just crisis management at its worst!
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies have no clue what to do to revive the Zimbabwe economy but because the regime believes it has the divine right to rule Zimbabwe, it will never accept it has failed much less give up power!
After 40 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF misrule, Zimbabwe is facing a serious existential threat that can only be solved by implementing the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and political mess is bad governance and the cure is implementing the reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
Zimbabwe must move with the times; gone are the days of divine rulers. We all know that Zanu PF has blatantly rigged the elections ever since the country attained her independence in 1980, we have pretended not to notice for 40 years and have paid dearly for it.
We must now step up and demand change, real and meaningful change, before it is too late!
Zimbabwe had 8 389 confirmed cases, including 7 939 recoveries and 245 deaths. 610 PCR tests done with 245 deaths to date.
Frontline workers like health workers are supposed to be tested as regularly as once a week. With 610 PCR tests a day it is clear that Zimbabwe is not testing frontline workers even once a month!
What is clear is that corona virus is not as deadly as the Ebola, for example. In UK less than 50 000 people have died of corona virus so far out of a population of 60 million or a death rate 0.1%. Even if the corona death rate in Zimbabwe was 10 times higher or 1%; it is easy to see how this could easily be attributed to other causes.
Officially, Zimbabwe has had 245 death so far, a far cry from the 160 000 or 1%. The reason why Zimbabwe’s official death rate is so low is because Zimbabwe has not been testing for corona virus.
@ Mujeri
“The US Assistant Secretary of State on African Affairs, Tibor Nagy, was recently quoted saying that the illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the West are targeted against certain individuals and certain corporations and not against the country of Zimbabwe.
“He further insinuated that sanctions could not stop US businesses from investing in Zimbabwe. By saying this, Nagy showed that he is a hypocrite who only wants to mislead the World into believing that sanctions have no effect on the people of Zimbabwe. Nagy is forgetting that a number of Government officials and over 50 local companies or organisations are under sanctions.”
Whatever suffering sanctions have caused to the ordinary people, it is nothing compared to the suffering caused by corruption. Why are you making a big song and dance about lifting the sanctions but have said nothing about ending corruption! You are the real hypocrite here!
Sikhala also “confronted” Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa over violation of human rights.
“We will not allow the regime to kill us while we are silent -never.It’s better to die fighting for freedom than to be killed in silence.So we are not going back, very soon the regime will be out of power, whether they like it or not,” declared Sikhala.
Both Sikhala and Ngarivhume participated in the July 2018 elections although it was a clear as day that without the democratic reforms in place Zanu PF will rig the elections. The two, just like all the other opposition politicians, were aware that Zanu PF was giving away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate. It was these bait seats they were after and they did not care the nation was paying dearly for it!
By participating in these flawed elections the opposition gave the process credibility and, by extension, the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.
It is mind boggling that Job Sikhala, Ngarivhume and company should now seek to remove Zanu PF from office through street protests when they are the ones who illegally smuggled Zanu PF into office for selfish and foolish reason - greed.
Zimbabwe needs to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections and the people stopping this happening are the village idiots who keep participating in flawed elections for selfish reasons.
"No one is above the law!" means nothing if those guilty of breaking the law are the ones responsible for crafting the law and enforce it!
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