“Why is that one of Africa’s most prosperous nations, South Africa, with strong economy and working health service, has the highest corona virus cases and deaths? It is counter intuitive!” asked Stephen Sackur, BBC HardTalk presenter.
“There is a significant amount of under reporting of corona virus cases and mortalities in some countries!” replied Professor Barry Schoub, a virologist and Chair of Advisory Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine in South Africa.
At the time of the above interview, mid December 2020, SA had over 1 million covid-19 cases and 25 000 covid-19 deaths. Zimbabwe had less than 12 000 cases and less than 400 deaths!
Given the heavy human traffic across the Limpopo River throughout the year, one expected Zimbabwe’s corona virus load to be comparable to that of SA. Zimbabwe’s population is 1/4 that of SA and therefore the corona virus cases and deaths would be 250 000 and 6 000 plus respectively. And yet Zimbabwe’s official figures are only 5%! How is that possible????
The official corona virus figures are of people who have been tested and the result came out positive. It is no secret that Zimbabwe has conducted the lowest number of covid-19 test per capita in the region.
Whilst SA was carrying out over 44 000 covid-19 teats per day in December 2020 and Zimbabwe should have been doing 11 000, or 1/4 that of SA, it was only doing 1 500 on a really busy day!
To make matters worse, the Zanu PF regime has been testing all those likely to come into conduct with the ruling elite to protect the chefs instead of testing those with corona virus symptoms and frontline workers!
A number of students at Dadaya High School had corona virus symptoms with a few testing positive of the virus, for example. Instead of testing everyone of the 1 000 or so student, only enough test kits to test 47 were supplied. The School closed a few days later and many suspected of corona virus infection were released on the unsuspecting community!
Of course, by failing to test and isolate those with the corona virus the regime was helping the virus spread far and wide and fast.
Zanu PF’s blundering incompetence has turn corona virus in Zimbabwe from a tragedy into a catastrophe of Biblical proportion. To start with, Zimbabwe’s economy was already in total meltdown and its health care services all but collapsed before the corona virus outbreak. And now, by foolishly trying to hide the seriousness of the pandemic by under reporting the virus figures, the regime is helping spread the virus!
The real tragedy for Zimbabwe is even now with the number of corona virus cases and deaths soaring the Zanu PF ruling elite have no clue what is going on. None!
"One expects that when tragedy strikes, it would gradually abet but this is not the case, it is only God who knows when it will end," said VP Chiwenga, who is also Minister of Health, presiding over the burial of three covid-19 victims at the national heroes shrine.
"The virus has taught us an important lesson that we are all mortals. It does discriminate against the weak and the powerful, the privileged and the deprived, the haves and the have-nots. It is a ruthless juggernaut that leaves a trail of despair and desperation. But we will eventually conquer it and prevail as a people."
The most important lesson the of soaring corona virus cases and deaths, way above the falsified official figures, is; “No one can cheat a deadly disease like corona virus. Those who try will pay dearly for their foolishness!”
Zimbabwe does not have economic resources to pay even a token welfare support to the millions now living in abject poverty let alone the generous furlough payments other nations are paying their citizens during corona virus lockdown. The country’s hospitals are so poorly equipped and staffed the country can do very little to save the lives of seriously ill corona virus patients.
Indeed, the country’s hospitals are already overwhelmed by the surge in corona virus cases. Hospitals are running out of something as basic as oxygen!
However, what Zimbabwe can and should do is reduce the spread of the virus which is fuelling the hospital cases by ramping up the testing and isolating. Sadly that is the one thing this Zanu PF regime will fight tooth and nail to stop happening.
Of course, Professor Schoub was right, “there is a significant amount of under reporting of corona virus cases and mortalities in some countries!”
"The virus has taught us an important lesson that we are all mortals!” Dear God, what a nightmare!
22 comments:
@ News Day
"But missing the opportunity to re-engage with Zimbabwe would be a mistake at both the diplomatic and economic level.
The country's leaders are frustrated that there are no clear targets for it to meet to gain acceptance by the West.
Lack of dialogue risks pushing Zimbabwe further into China and Russia's spheres of influence."
This is nonsense! Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies knew exactly what reforms they needed to implement ensure the 2018 elections were free, fair and credible. They failed to implement even one token reform.
When it comes to holding free, fair and credible elections, this is something that Zanu PF feels it does not have to do because the party has the divine right to govern Zimbabwe regardless how much they have failed. It is high time the world show Mnangagwa and company that free, fair and credible elections are not negotiable. The world must now turn the screw on the regime two full turns!
@Abednico Mwembe Mwembe
For once, I agree with you! Joe Biden could be the Morgan Tsvangirai of America "flawed and indecisive!"
"Once all the scientific verifications are complete, Treasury has the capacity to pay for vaccines to meet all the needs of each and every Zimbabwean who will have to be vaccinated," George Guvamatanga, finance and economic development secretary, said by text message. He declined to comment on the amount set aside to pay for the shots.
Revenue inflows from a 2% tax on electronic transactions, a monthly fiscal surplus and unallocated reserves in the national budget could be used to fund the vaccines, he said. A 30-day strict lockdown imposed early January doesn't "mean that government had shut down," it is still generating income, he said.
Zimbabwe's outbreak is overwhelming hospitals and two cabinet ministers died last week after contracting the virus. The nation of almost 15 million people is engaging at least seven manufacturers in the U.S., U.K., China, Russia and India to secure vaccines, according to a proposal seen by Bloomberg and confirmed by government spokesman Nick Mangwana by text message on Tuesday. The bulk of the manufacturers are expected to make a decision on the request as early as next week.
The Southern African nation plans to rely on an immunization program already in place to roll out the shots, in addition to companies setting aside spaces at their facilities that will be used to inoculate staff and their families.
We must never ever forget that we are dealing with an extremely corrupt and incompetent regime here. We already know that the regime has been cooking up the country’s corona virus cases and deaths figures for the sake of good publicity at the expense of the virus spreading far and wide.
Many donors including the IMF, WB and donor nations have reduced their assistance ti the country because Zimbabwe is a Banana Republic, a pariah state, in which corruption is rampant.
George Guvamatanga says government will have the resources to make sure “each and every Zimbabwean” is vaccinated. Do not hold you breath!
Of course, when the nation has a government that has no clue what it is doing, only God knows how this tragedy, made worse by the blundering incompetence of Zanu PF, will end!
HUMAN rights and political activists have strongly condemned Monday’s announcement by government that Covid-19 vaccine will only be availed to government ministers, legislators, health workers and other top government officials.
The controversial disclosure was made by the head of monitoring and evaluation in the health ministry, Robert Mudyiradima while appearing before the parliamentary portfolio on health.
“The vaccine might not be enough and there will be a group that will be prioritised such as frontline workers, ministers, MPs and members of the security sector,” he told the legislators.
However, Mudyiradima’s statements have drawn the ire of human rights, civic society, and political activists.
George Guvamatanga promised the resources to buy vaccines for everyone but was very care not to say when. The poor will have to wait just as they have been waiting these last 40 years for their turn to loot and build Blue Roof type mansions for themselves!
@ Nomazulu
Yet despite the trillions of dollars that have found their way to sub-Saharan Africa, these developing nations are worse off today than they were during the colonial era. Instead Aid has been mismanaged in such a way that the intended beneficiaries are poorer, and the rich have become richer. In a nutshell foreign aid, has been mismanaged in unprecedented ways. Foreign Aid is siphoned off to buy military equipment, to finance white elephantine projects and to indulge in massive corruption. Most African governments are over bloated and, as a result, some African governments in the south Sahara have national treasury budgets that are sustained by foreign aid. Factually, aid is spent on government infrastructure deals, natural resources deals and other dubious and often corrupt projects activities.
The current document EU Marshall Plan with Africa is a positive start because it emphasises the need for young Africans to see Africa as their own continent which has all the answers to their social, economic, and political needs. Young Africans must see a bright future in Africa. In 2050, the population of Africa will have doubled to two billion. This factually means that the continent must create 20 million jobs every year. Job creation and ownership of durable and sustainable projects will indeed stabilize African communities. Solutions to African problems that bedevil African growth are in Africa and will be done by Africans with the European technical knowhow, and the African knowhow, which is already around, that is of great necessity to transform lives durably and sustainably
The rapid population growth is posing a very serious challenge requiring economic growth rates of 20% plus year on year starting today for the next 30 years - something that has never been achieves in human history. Countries like Zimbabwe with unemployment a staggering 90%, whose health and education services have all but completely collapsed, etc.; this is already a bridge too far!
We need this EU Marshall Plan launched yesterday!
Corona virus has been made worse by those who have deliberately hiden the truth about the virus from the people! The real numbers of covid-19 cases and deaths are far higher than the official figures!
Why has Zimbabwe consistently carried out one of the lowest number of covid-19 tests per capita in the region?
It is Zanu PF’s obsession with secrecy, power and making sure it is never held to democratic account that is costing the nation unnecessary additional corona virus suffering and deaths!
Zanu PF is like the Chinese Communist Party, it is the latter’s obsession with secrecy and lack of democratic accountability that has resulted in the spread of the corona virus to the world.
The single most important lesson to be learned here is that Zimbabwe cannot afford a government that places its insatiable hunger for power above the wellbeing and lives of the people! Zanu PF’s madness must be stopped; no one has the divine right to govern the country.
From now on, the mandate to govern must be derive from the people in a free, fair and credible elections. There will be no more rigged elections!
Public hospitals can handle the Covid-19 case-load for free and there is no need for anyone to pay exorbitant fees demanded by private providers for Covid-19 testing and treatment.
Responding to concerns about the costs of private treatment, the Ministry of Health and Child Care said Government hospitals and other public institutions run by local authorities, including in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru and Mutare were offering free testing and other services.
"Government is offering all services provided by private hospitals," said the ministry's spokesperson Mr Donald Mujiri.
"Government is offering testing, admission, treatment surgery for Covid-19 patients, and in some cases follow-up."
Medical Superintendent at Gweru Provincial Hospital Dr Fabian Mashingaidze said Government institutions are admitting Covid-19 patients for free. Gweru Provincial Hospital has one of the best Covid-19 patients centres partly-funded by a local private company.
"We are admitting patients for free and we have one of the best Covid-19 centre at the hospital after we received some funding. We also have ventilators at the centre and we have been admitting patients at our new facility," said Dr Mashingaidze.
Some private hospitals are charging in excess of US$5 000 for admission of Covid-19 patients. On top of the fixed admission fees, the patients are required to pay an additional US$100 or more per day depending on the condition of the patient.
After decades of under investment all public hospitals and clinics are in a sorry state with poorly maintain infrastructure and equipment and poorly staffed. There has been a steady haemorrhaging of qualified nurses and doctors from Zimbabwe.
Gweru Provincial Hospital must be one of the very lucky ones in the country to be so well funded it is able to provide quality health care without charging a single dollar to the patients!
This is a totally irresponsible statement from Dr Mashingaidze. History will remember that the corona virus situation in Zimbabwe was made that much worse by professionals who chose to work with the Zanu PF regime in keeping the public in the dark on the seriousness of the pandemic!
MPILO Central Hospital mortality rates have shot up, with two staffers testing Covid-19 positive daily, forcing authorities to conduct tests for all 2 100 staff members and 348 patients currently admitted to the public institution.
On average, the hospital would record three to seven deaths from all its wards but of late 10-12 people are dying daily. With a majority of Covid-19 active cases and deaths occurring in communities, Mpilo authorities say it was important for them to establish if none of the staffers and patients are at risk of contracting the deadly virus.
Two weeks ago, the hospital reported that 206 staffers had contracted Covid-19 since the outbreak of the disease in March last year.
The 900-bed hospital caters mainly for the southern region which covers Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and South as well as Masvingo and Midlands provinces. Of the 206, 155 are nurses, nine doctors, 12 general hands and 12 from the pharmacy. Two are counsellors and the other two are lab technicians.
The 206 are part of the 1 547 health workers who have tested positive countrywide and seven who have succumbed to the global pandemic.
"We used to record on average three to seven deaths per day now we are at 10-12 per day on average. That's why we want to make sure that we are not missing any Covid-19 cases who may be in our wards. We also need to ensure that patients receive appropriate care while protecting staff, relatives and the wide public from being infected," said Prof Ngwenya.
"We are seeing an increasing number of people dying in the wards so we need to make sure that we do not take any chances in case they have Covid-19. We also have an increasing number of staff being infected so we want to know what is really going on in the hospital and tackle the root problem from there."
Prof Ngwenya also said on average two Mpilo staffers are testing Covid-19 positive daily and it was a cause for concern.
So the death rate at Mpilo Hospital has doubled and no doubt the story is the same everywhere and we also know that many more covid-19 patients are dying at home. And so how is it possible that officially we are told the have been 70 covid-19 deaths across the whole of Zimbabwe on a particularly bad day!
There have been many, many covid-19 deaths across the land who have not been treated and buried as covid-19 cases only because they were never tested. Why? Well because Zanu PF was determined to keep the official corona virus cases and deaths low for bragging rights purposes.
The party has been boasting of the country’s low corona virus figures - proof the regime has contained the pandemic better than many of its neighbours!
It is an outrage to be lying and bragging about it but worst of all when the lying has only helped the virus to spread far and wide and thus causing more suffering and deaths!
Former United States Department of State assistant secretary for African Affairs, Todd Moss has told President Emmerson Mnangagwa that the US administration will not lift sanctions and accused him of squandering opportunities to engage during Donald Trump's reign.
Moss also told Mnangagwa to stop wasting money by hiring public relations firms and lobbyists before implementing reforms demanded by the US.
The sanctions screw must now be tightened two full circles, at least. Zimbabwe has failed to hold free, fair and credible elections in 40 years and counting; this must now stop.
@ Lampard
The current trajectory whereby Zimbabwe chooses not to deal with trade and fiscal imbalances, which is a result of low production, is not sustainable. In the last decade, Zimbabwe’s trade deficit has cumulated to US$30 billion, with the country’s major imports – on an annual basis – being finished goods which include mineral fuels, machinery, cereals, motor vehicles, electrical products, pharmaceuticals, plastics and animal and vegetable fats with import value of US$1,499.7 million, US$467.8 million, US$510 million, US$340 million, US$263 million, US$201.6 million, US$181 million and US$154 million, respectively.
This calls for an import substitution strategy, starting with the quick wins, to rein in the major drainers of liquidity. The conversation must therefore shift from the current hallucination with the foreign currency auction system as the magic bullet to the country’s challenges, to building on the Zimbabwe National Industrial Policy (ZNDP), which was launched last year by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Could not agree with you more expect on the order the revival must take place. Any attempt to revive the economy with out first fixing the country’s rotten political system that has allowed corrupt and incompetent individuals to stay in power for donkey years is doomed to fail.
As long as Zanu PF remain in power nothing is ever going to change. Nothing!
So if you are serious about reviving the Zimbabwe economy you must first find a cure to the country’s curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
Indeed, we have the cure, implement the democratic reforms. So far no one has been able to get the country to take the medicine.
MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to do so during the 2008 to 2013 GNU but failed to get even one reform implemented because they sold-out!
“I had a conversation with my brother Advocate Nelson Chamisa.
“Very excited about working together and combining effort in the coming weeks and months to build a broad consensus to push the reforms agenda and double down on the anti- corruption fight during this critical period we are in, where greater accountability is absolutely imperative,” said Ngarivhume
Anyone with half a brain would be aware you are talking about “pushing the reform agenda” but fail to name even one reform you want.
Where you, Comrade Jacob Ngarivhume, and your Transform Zimbabwe party not in the Nation Election Reform Agenda (NERA), an umbrella group of opposition parties “pushing the reform agenda” before the 2018 elections. They failed to push through even one reform and still they all participated in the 2018 elections knowing fully Zanu PF was rigging the elections.
So you expect the nation to believe that you will get meaningful reforms implemented this time! You are just playing for time and come 2023 you and the rest in the opposition camp will participate in the election with no reforms in place. Stop taking everyone for fools!
The whole world is angry with China right now because many people believe the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) delayed informing the WHO of the outbreak of corona virus because of the regime's obsession with secrecy. The CCP is supersensitive about letting out as little information on what is going on in the country as possible. It is fearful of being criticised and, God forbid, being held to account.
Zimbabwe's Zanu PF regime is an autocratic and totalitarian regime too, just like the CCP, and it is not surprising it too is supersensitive about criticism and accountability. Zanu PF too is obsessed about keeping the nation in the dark on everything.
Zanu PF is corrupt and incompetent and it was therefore obvious the regime would be found wanting in its handling of the corona virus pandemic. The regime passed a law making it a criminal offence publishing any other details on the corona virus situation in the country other than the official line.
Mpilo Hospital has just revealed that 3 to 7 deaths it was recording 10-12 and there are many more deaths occurring in communities. The story is the same across the country. And yet the official corona virus death rate has been 70 or so on a particular bad day! Of course, this is a lie a damned lie at that!
There is no denying by being secretive about how the virus was spreading Zanu PF has given the virus wings to spread far and wide and very, very fast!
The three most important lesson Zimbabwe should learn from the corona virus pandemic are:
one, it is foolish to be secretive about such a deadly disease like corona virus, especial when you don't have the resources to deal with the consequences of your folly.
Two, the problem of bad governance that has dogged this nation for 40 years has turned a tragedy into a catastrophe, and with Zanu PF still trying to sweep the problem under the carpet we are not out of the woods yet. This Zanu PF regime has clearly learned nothing!
Three, the cure to bad governance is implementing the democratic reforms and we must make sure we take the medicine this time!
Lampard, in Zimbabwe the conversations must not only go beyond the forex auction and focus on production but go even further and focus on political change. There will be no meaningful economic recovery in the country as long as the country remains a Banana Republic, a pariah state, ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs!
Any attempt to revive the economy with out first fixing the country’s rotten political system that has allowed corrupt and incompetent individuals to stay in power has failed. After 40 years of trying to make the economy work regardless of the criminal waste of the nation’s human and material resources by Zanu PF; it is insane to carry on for even one more day!
As long as Zanu PF remain in power nothing of substance is ever going to change. Nothing!
So if we are serious about reviving the Zimbabwe economy we must first find a cure to the country’s curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
Indeed, we did find the cure back in 2008 and the GNU was tasked to implement the raft democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Sadly Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were not up to the task and failed to implement even one reform in five years.
What Zimbabwe needs right now is a body of competent and focused individuals who will implement the reforms, get the nation to take its medicine, so we can finally move on.
"Routine tests for Covid-19 were conducted at Mutimurefu Prison and 78 inmates came out positive and they were immediately put in self-isolation,"said Mr Irimai.
"We continue to closely monitor the situation at Mutimurefu but authorities at the institution have assured us that they have sufficient space and scope to isolate those infected."
This comes as results that come on Tuesday for 445 Covid-19 tests conducted in the province produced 43 positive cases.
The figure for positive cases excludes Mutimurefu inmates.
This brings the cumulative number of positive cases in Masvingo to date to 2037.
Out of that there were 1666 recoveries and 60 deaths with the number of active cases currently standing at 311.
One does not need to have gone to school at all to see there are gapping holes in these official corona virus stories. If there were only 311 active corona virus cases in the whole of Masvingo province who did 78 inmate at Mutimurefu Prison got infected in just two or three days?
How long have the authorities at the Prison reported of suspected corona virus cases and no one carried out the tests until now?
Zimbabwe’s covid-19 testing regime has been wilfully inadequate, many, many more people have ended up getting the virus because many infected people went unidentified and thus allowed to spread the virus.
Last month when SA was testing 44 000 per day and Zimbabwe with 1/4 SA’s population should have been testing 11 000 per day, the country has only managing 1 500 on a real good day!
The reason why Zanu PF is deliberately keeping the country’s official corona virus cases and deaths down is because the regime wants to brag of having contained the virus better than SA and other nations in the region. This is not only a lie but one that is costing the nation hundreds of thousands and more of avoidable covid-19 deaths!
@ Chamisa
The response of the Ministry of Health in particular and the Government in general is noted and appreciated.
We salute our information and communication practitioners, the media, our journalists for the great work in spreading the information on COVID 19 and keeping the nation informed on this deadly pandemic.
Although the approach of central government has been deficient in several key areas, we choose not to play politics with this serious issue. We have steered clear of finding fault and blame gaming suffice to help improve on and complement the strategy of government.
The objective underlying this proposed plan is to offer an alternative policy framework to the manner in which the Government has approached the COVID19 response thus far.
COVID-19 EMERGING ISSUES ZIMBABWE
CAPACITY OF HEALTH INSTITUTIONS. With COVID19 cases almost tripling in the last 6 weeks, our hospitals are overwhelmed and failing to cope with the number of COVID19 infected patients requiring hospital admissions. We know that 10-15% of all cases will progress to severe illness and approximately 5% of cases will become critically ill.
The average daily cases over the past 2 weeks in Zimbabwe are around 700 cases. This means that between 70 and 105 people per day may progress to severe disease which may require hospitalisation.
These numbers are too high for our health infrastructure to cope and as a result our capacity to handle severe cases of COVID-19 seem to be surpassed by the pandemic resulting in suboptimal and in some instances non-existent emergency services for people with severe COVID-19. Parirenyatwa needs to increase COVID-19 response infrastructure immediately.
This may be one of the reasons for the high death rates that we have been witnessing over the past weeks. There is need to urgently increase the bed capacity in public hospitals so that patients with COVID-19 have access to oxygen therapy, as well ventilators for those who are critically ill. These services need to be decentralized and become available in all provinces. The situation is not good at all. Access to a bed and oxygen therapy must be more readily available across the country.
The tragedy for Zimbabwe is that we have a corrupt and incompetent ruling party and an equally corrupt and incompetent opposition party that has no clue what is going on. It is either Zanu PF has been lying about the country being ready to deal with the pandemic or are lying about the corona virus cases or both. And MDC for their part, have no clue Zanu PF is lying.
The nation was told there would be ten or so covid-19 treating hospitals in each of the ten provinces. If there were 20 covid-19 beds in each centre that gave 200 bed per province and 2 000 nation wide. There would be provision to double the beds in an emergency. How can the system then be overwhelmed in the first few days of admitting 70 to 105 patients per day!
We learned this week that Mpilo Hospital is the only hospital taking covid-19 patients as the other two have neither the staff or the equipment. A very common story repeated over and over again.
It also turns out that the 700 or so official corona virus cases per day is way off the mark; ever since the outbreak the regime has not been testing as diligently as WHO recommended and common sense dictates. Whilst SA was doing 44 000 tests per day and Zimbabwe, with 1/4 SA’s population should have been doing 11 000 tests per day, was doing 1 500 tests on a real good day! Why the opposition has failed to pick this for nearly a year now beggars belief!
@ Mutambara
Former deputy prime minister Professor Arthur Mutambara says it is a tragic indictment on all Africans that there is no African country or black-owned company producing a Covid-19 vaccine.
"The African is an observer, a subject and not a participant, in vaccine development.”
This is rich coming from the man who failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the 2008 to 2013 GNU.
Developing a corona virus vaccine entails splitting the DNA of a virus so small one can fit three side by side on the edge of a razor blade. And so you, Professor Mutambara can imagine yourself have the technical know-how to do thing but could not get your head round what constitute free, fair and credible elections!
Zimbabwe loves boasting about being one of the most literate nation in Africa and we certain have countless university graduates, PhDs, Professors, etc., etc. too. What a pity none of the schools, colleges and university ever teach common sense! What is the point of being a professor when cannot implement even one reform to stop a brain dead buffoon like Mnangagwa, Chiwenga, Matemdanda, etc., rigging the election and denying you and the nation at large the future.
Zanu PF has starved even big referral hospitals like Parerenyatwa of funding the hospital regularly run out of something as basic as pain killers and even clean running water. Only a village idiot would expect somewhere in the decay and rot at Parerenyatwa Hospital the staff and equipment to study the DNA of a virus!
FRESH startling details have emerged indicating how the late former President Robert Mugabe and his family worked with extop parastatal and security bosses to ship high-grade diamonds and ivory out of the country.
Mugabe - who died in September 2019 - was as shrewd in underhand dealings as he was in politics, according to exclusive information obtained by the Zimbabwe Independent, this week.
This comes amid reports that his vast farming empire under Gushungo Holdings is crumbling, with workers owed salaries, while part of the estate in Mazowe - 40km north of Harare - is being leased to a millionaire businessman.
In private briefings this week, it emerged that Mugabe and his family could have had a close working relationship with the then Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) commissioner-general Gershem Pasi through a diamond cutting and processing company - Gemgrade Mining Company.
This was revealed in confidential information belonging to Gushungo Holdings dated October 12, 2015, when a former Mugabe top employee at Alpha Omega stepped down from his post.
In 2012 Canada Africa, a Canadian NGO that has carried out research in the diamond trading, revealed that Mugabe alone made US$ 2 billion in diamond deals in one year.
The then Minister of Finance 2008 to 2013, Tendai Biti, complained of the country having two governments, the formal one plus the informal Joint Operation Command, a Junta, with its own source of funding!
And so Mugabe’s admission that the country was being swindled out of US$15 billion in diamond revenue was not far fetched as some people have often claimed.
He said the country should address the debt crisis to build confidence and unlock new funding.
"Go back to the drawing board from a politics point of view; and this goes for both parties. It takes two to tango," Chanakira said.
Zimbabwe is well and truly stuck! We have corrupt and incompetent leaders, on both sides of the political divide, who dragged us into this mess. Then we have ordinary citizens themselves who should by now accept the leaders are corrupt and incompetent and thus start the search for competent leaders, are refusing to open their eyes and are the ones insisting the failed leaders will do.
Zanu PF and MDC leaders failed to implement even one reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU why anyone would believe the two parties will do any better now beggars belief.
The refusal to accept that Zanu PF and MDC leaders are corrupt and incompetent shows that Zimbabweans are not yet ready to deal with the nation’s problems. Even if the nation was handed a health and functioning democracy in a silver platter; give us in the morning and by noon it will be a de facto one party dictatorship.
“It takes two to tango!” insist the village idiot refusing to acknowledge the two are mud crabs!
"Mnangagwa's A6 private jet with Tagwirei and five doctors on board has landed in Dubai on what appears to be a stopover. Signs are that it is headed for China. Tagwirei, Mnangagwa's big money man, is said to have been recovering well from #COVID19, only to relapse badly yesterday!" Moyo said.
Earlier, Moyo had said Tagwirei was flown on a Mnangagwa linked private jet.
"Tagwirei was airlifted on a Mnangagwa-linked private jet, Boeing 737-725 (BBJ), that's also been linked to systematic gold smuggling in recent months, shown here earlier today on its flight path to Dubai!" he said.
Every time Zanu PF puts out a story suggesting we are in this corona virus together the rich and the poor, the weak and the powerful, etc. VP Chiwenga said the country had the resources to deal with the corona virus cases, then why is Tangwirei being airlifted to distant lands!
@ Runyanga
No one would deny that Professor Moyo is very bittter but that does not make him a liar! He knows the inner working of the corrupt Zanu PF regime better than most people because he knows most of the Zanu PF thugs inside out!
No it is you and your Zanu PF handlers who are bitter Moyo got away and is making you lot look foolish!
THE chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health, Ruth Labode, yesterday expressed concern over the fact that Zimbabwe has a few free COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing centres at a time the number of infections in the country is soaring.
As of January 31, Zimbabwe had recorded 33 388 COVID-19 infections, 26 044 recoveries, and 1 217 deaths.
Labode's remarks came soon after Information and Publicity secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana last week stated that the country got US$45 million for test kits last year.
Mangwana said the grant did not come in hard currency.
Zimbabwe’s corona virus cases and deaths should be comparable to those of SA for the simple reason that the heavy human traffic, legal and illegal, between the two countries has continued ever since the pandemic outbreak. SA had one million corona virus cases and 25 000 death in December 2020 and Zimbabwe, with 1/4 the population of SA, should have 250 000 cases and 6 000 deaths. And yet officially the country had 12 000 cases and 400 deaths. The reason for the discrepancy was obvious, Zimbabwe was not doing as many test as it should.
Whilst SA was doing 44 000 tests per day and we should have been doing 11 000 we were only doing 1 500 tests per day!
For a country whose health care service is kaput; testing and isolating is the only line of defence, one expected the regime to have a robust testing and isolating regime. Sadly, that was not to be.
"It is true that US$45 million worth of personal protective equipment and testing kits was allocated to government by the Global Fund. My concern is that the country still has a few COVID-19 testing centres other than the usual hospitals," Labode told Southern Eye.
So it has taken a year for the parliamentary committee on health to finally wake-up to the reality that Zimbabwe is not testing (God knowing how long it is going to take to get the isolating up and running) as many times as it should! How tragic!
History will say Zimbabwe’s real, as contrast to the under reported official, corona virus cases and deaths were much worse than they could have been if the country has carried out even the common sense measures such as test and isolate!
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