"Find holistic and lasting solution to national crisis" says ZCC - as usual, know solution but cannot speak it P Guramatunhu

 “Chiredzi South legislator Kalisto Gwanetsa last week called a meeting with all school heads in his constituency after it recorded poor results during the 2019 Grade 7, Ordinary Level and Advance Level Zimsec examinations” reported Newsday in February 2020.

“Most of the schools performed dismally with some posting a 0% pass rate while others got 2% or 3%.”

"I have called this meeting because I am not happy with last year's results. I know things are difficult economically, but our results are pathetic. We have room to improve. We should be seen putting more effort to improve our pass rate,” said the Zanu PF MP Brigadier-General Kalisto Gwanetsa (Retired).

Well the schools were open for only three months before they closed for the nationwide corona virus lockdown. 

Officially, schools reopened on 28 September 2020 but in practice students have not been attending classes because there are no teachers. Teachers are strike. They are demanding a living wage. 

One thing is certain, there will NOT be much improvement in the school results in Chiredzi South constituency. And if the truth be told this is not a problem in Chiredzi South alone, it is everywhere.

2019 was not the first time the country had posted pathetic school results, this has been going on for decades now. And, worst of all, there is absolutely no hope of education standard ever improving without first reviving the country’s comatose economy. As long as the economy remains in the doldrums there will be no money to pay the teachers a living wage and money to pay for all the other things needed to deliver quality education. 

Zimbabwe’s economy has been in decline for the last 40 years, ever since the country’s independence in 1980. Four decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have left the country’s once robust and promising economy in ruins. 

Zanu PF, the party that has remained in office throughout the 40 years, has grudging acknowledged the economic meltdown but refused to accept it is responsible for it. 

Worst of all, the party insist it has solutions to revive the economy, insisting the country is well on its way to become an “upper middle income nation by 2030, vision 2030!” The reality is Zanu PF has no clue what to do to revive the economic and the failure to provide such basic services as education and health proves the country is sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss. 

The tragedy is the people are stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime for all these last 40 years. The regime has rigged the elections to secure it stay in power. 

"Failure to find a lasting solution for our schools could have long-term consequences not only for education, but also for our development trajectory of the nation. Solutions must be holistic, comprehensive and inclusive. We can resolve this social contract breakdown," commented Kenneth Mtata, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) secretary-general.

The only holistic, comprehensive, inclusive and lasting solution to Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis, the crisis in education is but one manifestation of the national crisis, is for the country to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance by holding free, fair and credible elections. 

Zimbabweans have known that the root cause of the country’s economic and political problems is bad governance. Even now with the nation’s very survival on the line, some people will not look Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies in the eye and tell them “Zimbabwe must have a new system of government, one where everyone has a meaningful vote!”  

“Find a holistic and lasting solution to the national crisis!” Yeah right!  You know what that solution is but cannot speak it!

Decades of poor examination results has condemned hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans to a life time of ignorance and uselessness. This cruel and criminal waste of human lives must stopped.

A nation that fails to educate its citizen is doomed.

ANC agogo about "crashing glass ceiling" progress in USA and reward stone-age regress in Zimbabwe N Garikai

 South Africa’s ruling party ANC Women League secretary-general, Meokgo Matuba, saluted United States Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris for being the first woman and woman of colour “to crash through one of the world’s highest glass ceilings”. A historic fact VP - elect Harris acknowledged and celebrated herself. “I will not be the last!” she remarked. 

“Harris as the Vice-President of the US must be the voice of reason against white supremacy, patriarchy, and male chauvinism in US and across the globe,” remarked Ms Matuba. 

“Serving under President Joe Biden, she must also be at the frontline to fight against imperialism and amongst others call for an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine land by Israel, an end of sanctions against Zimbabwe, Cuba and many other countries.”

Zimbabwe is certainly one country that is in serious trouble and every thinking human being out there would ask VP elect Kamala Harris to please ignore Ms Meokgo Matuba. Zimbabwe is not in a mess because of the sanction!

The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and political paralysis is the country’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. The country has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 40 years because the regime has blatantly rigged elections to perpetuate its stay in power. 

All the nation’s other problems of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption, economic meltdown, the total collapse of basic services such as education and health, tyrannical oppression, the murder of over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans for political gain, etc., etc.; could not and can never be meaningfully addressed as long as Zanu PF remain in office.

Zanu PF has always sort to blame all the nation’s economic problems and even justify its tyrannical oppression on the targeted sanction imposed on the regime by the USA and other Western nations without ever producing and evidence to support its claim. Why should a village in the rural backwaters be denied their right to a meaningful vote because the West imposed sanctions of the regime? Why would the government punish its own people for something they have no control over? 

It is bad enough that Zanu PF has used sanctions as a feeble excuse for refusing to implement the democratic reforms necessary for restoring the people’s freedoms and rights including the holding of free and fair elections. It is adding insult to injury when outsiders side with the regime and ignore the mountain of evidence to proving that sanctions are just an excuse.  

SA has refused to accept that Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections and is therefore, per se, illegitimate. The 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote, compared to the 2.4 million Mnangagwa says voted for him to win the presidency. The regime failed to produce something as basic and fundamental for free and fair elections as verified voters’ roll. SA ignored all that and insisted the elections “went well!”

Of all people, VP - elect Harris would understand the importance of free, fair and credible elections and the critical importance of  healthy and functioning democratic institutions. She can well image what a mess America would be in if President Donald Trump’s repeated call to “Stop counting the votes!” had been carried out.

Zanu PF stopped the vote counting in 2008 when it was clear the party was losing the elections. It took six weeks to count 5 million votes announce the cooked up result. Six weeks!

Why Ms Meokgo Matuba and ANC government are ignoring the cry of people of Zimbabwe for justice, freedom and human dignity and listen instead to Zanu PF lies and propaganda is a complete mystery! 

Yes, the election of Kamala Harris as USA Vice President “crashed the highest glass ceilings”. It is a very important mile stone in America’s march towards creating an equal and just society, free of the old prejudices of colour, gender, religion, etc. 

In Zimbabwe, we thought the country’s independence would mark the end of white colonial oppression and exploitation and restore all are freedoms and rights. How wrong we were. We remove the white oppressors only to replace them with one of our own. Ordinary Zimbabweans are still being denied their most basic and fundamental freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life! 

How ironic that Ms Matuba is agogo celebrating human progress in far away land and yet is indifferent to Zanu PF dragging a nation into the sone-age in her own backyard! Indeed, in her foolishness, she is even asking for the Zanu PF thugs to be rewarded. She wants all the sanctions imposed on the thugs for failing to hold free and fair elections lifted!

Cry the beloved Africa! With leaders like Mnangagwa and Ms Matuba, with a knack for taking one step forward and three steps backward and view that as progress, it is little wonder Africans have remained rooted as mankind’s footstool! 

Over the moon, Trump lost; 4 years of "America (cum Trump) first!" have left free world weak and divided W Mukori

 It was not until Friday evening, three full day after the voting date, 3 November 2020, that it was finally clear Joe Biden had won the USA presidential election. It was only then did the free-world and all those aspiring for freedom finally heaved a sigh of relief! 

Four years of President Donald Trump in White House had been a nightmare and the prospect of another four years of Trump was unthinkable!

The election of Trump in 2016 was a big mistake, it was just one example when even a healthy, tried and tested functioning democratic system can get it wrong. Trump is not a democrat, he has no respect for the rule of law, justice and does not care about the best interest of the commonwealth. 

The world has had a taste of what Trump meant with his “America first!” slogan. He has unpicked America’s relationship with its competitors not in the spirit of win-win but America wins and you lose. He had trading war with China and America’s western allies alike.

The Americans themselves soon learned what a ruthless operator Trump was as it became clear that “America first!” had Siamese twin “Trump first!” The shameless political shenanigan by President Donald Trump to pressure Ukraine and others to blacken his political rivals and help him win the elections has once again tarnished the office of USA President. The only other person to do the same was Richard Nixon Never with the Watergate scandal. 

“Whatever may appear to have been the case before, whatever improper activities may yet be discovered in connection with this whole sordid affair, I want the American people, I want you to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that during my term as President, justice will be pursued fairly, fully, and impartially, no matter who is involved. This office is a sacred trust and I am determined to be worthy of that trust,” announced President Nixon in August 1974. 

“There can be no whitewash at the White House!”

The sordid details of the scandal did come out and it was clear that he had, all along, known of the plan to gain electoral advantage over his opponents by criminal means and then hide the truth. 

Nixon resigned before he was impeached. Trump was impeach but got away with it only because the Senate was controlled by the Republicans, his political party. 

Richard Nixon’s August 1974 speech has been dubbed “I am not a crook!” Events proved that he was indeed a crook. President Trump’s arrogant dismissal of the whole Ukraine sordid affair and many others beside showed he really did not care. His whole demeanour said it all “I am a crook, so what!” 

Trump’s presidency divided America along its fault line - race. All the work done heal the nation by the successive generations since President Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery was all being undone before our own eyes. President Trump was fanning the racial war for his own political gain. “Trump first!”

A navel gazing America, much worse one at war with itself and its on allies for the last thing the free world want. The anarchists will pounce and chaos and war will rule the day.   

Like it or not America is the leader of the free and democratic world. America represents justice, freedom, democracy, good governance and economic prosperity for the many. Or, as the French revolution would put, America represents “Liberté, égalité and fraternité!” Having an anarchist like Trump in White House had put all that on the line. 

Knowing what a serious threat to freedom, liberty, etc. Trump had been these last four years; to have elect him for four more years  would have been reckless and attempting providence. In the highest ever voter turnout, the Americans gave Trump his marching orders to vacate the White House! And the free world heaved a sigh of relief! 

"2008 GNU stabilised the economy" - but that was not its primary purpose much less justification for a new GNU W Mukori

 “In 2009, the late former president Robert Mugabe was forced into forming a GNU with the MDC's late and much loved founding father, Morgan Tsvangirai, after the hotly disputed 2008 polls,” reported Daily News.

“The short-lived GNU was credited with stabilising the country's economy which had imploded in the run-up to those elections.”

This is the kind of foolish narrative that one has often heard from the corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders and their apologists. The primary purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was not, I repeat, was NOT to “stabilise the country’s economy which had imploded in the run-up to the 2008 elections!”

The international community including SADC and AU refused to accept Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections as free and fair and to recognise Zanu PF’s claim as the legitimate government given the blatant cheating and wanton violence by Zanu PF. In the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed by Robert Mugabe on behalf Zanu PF,  by Morgan Tsvangirai on behalf of MDC-T and Arthur Mutambara on behalf of the smaller MDC faction and by President Thabo Mbeki of SA on behalf of SADC as the guarantor; it was agreed the three Zimbabwean parties would form a Government of National Unity (GNU). 

The primary purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed in the GPA and to draft a new democratic constitution for Zimbabwe and to oversee the holding of fresh free, fair and credible elections. The primary purpose of the GNU was not make sure the next elections will NOT be a repeat of the the 2008 elections. 

Indeed, the Daily News reporter agree with the above analysis because he/she agrees the 2008 elections were not free and fair. 

“In those polls (2008), Tsvangirai beat Mugabe hands down. However, the results were withheld for six long weeks by stunned authorities - amid widespread allegations of ballot tampering and fraud, which were later revealed by former bigwigs of the ruling Zanu-PF,” continued the Daily News report.

“In the ensuing sham presidential run-off, which authorities claimed was needed to determine the winner, Zanu-PF apparatchiks engaged in an orgy of violence in which hundreds of Tsvangirai's supporters were killed - forcing the former prime minister to withdraw from the discredited race altogether.

“Mugabe went on to stand in an embarrassing and widely condemned one-man race in which he declared himself the winner.”

Sadly for Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to implement even one meaningful democratic reforms in five years of the GNU. Not even one reform! 

Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the trappings of high office, ministerial limos, very generous salaries, a US$ 4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc. With their snouts in the feeding trough, the MDC leaders forgot about the reforms. They did not want to up set Mugabe after all the generosity he had shown them. 

“Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyerere!” (MDC leaders are enjoying the gravy train good-life, they will not rock the boat!) Zanu PF cronies boasted when asked why MDC were not implementing the reforms. 

SADC leaders tried to have the up coming July 2013 Zimbabwe elections postponed until the democratic reforms could be implemented - further proof the GNU was about implementing reforms and not “stabilising the economy”! 

“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza told Journalist Violet Gonda.

“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections. If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws.

“And after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”

Tsvangirai et all ignored the SADC leaders’ advice just as they had ignored the advice to implement the reforms through out the five years of the GNU. 

Morgan Tsvangirai, his MDC friends and their apologists have peddled the false narrative that the primary purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to stabilise the Zimbabwe economy because they did not want to admit they had sold out and failed to implement even one democratic reform. 

If MDC leaders had implemented the democratic reforms the 2013 and all elections since would have been free, fair and credible. If Zimbabwe did not have a competent government then at least it would have one that is democratically accountable to the people - a good start. Instead the country is still stuck with the corrupt and tyrannical de facto one-party dictatorship and the vote rigging Zanu PF regime.   

The Daily News report’s primary purpose was to promote an new Zanu PF and MDC GNU; “many Zimbabweans have welcomed the push by the MDC to hold talks with Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF, with a view to forming a new GNU, in a bid to end the country's myriad challenges.”

If the “myriad of challenges” the new GNU is to address are economic then the proposed Zanu PF and MDC GNU is will fit the bill. If the “myriad of challenges” include implementing democratic reforms designed to end the curse of rigged elections then another  Zanu PF and MDC GNU is a waste of time. If the two parties failed to implement even one meaningful reform; which, I repeat, was the primary purpose of the 2008 GNU; it is naive to believe they will do so now. 

Zanu PF will never ever reform itself out of office. The party must step down to create the political space for the appointment of an interim administration that will implement the reforms and clear the path for the holding of the country’s first free, fair and credible elections. 

Zanu PF has rigged elections ever since the 1980 elections. The party rigged the July 2018 elections, the regime is illegitimate and must step down. It is an outrage that Zanu PF has held this nation to ransom for 40 years now and it is insane to allow this to continue for one more day, especially now with the country’s very stability and survival on the line!

Thank God, covid-19 is not as deadly as Ebola; however it delivered coup de grace on the economy P Guramatunhu

 “854 PCR tests done today (Wednesday), with the positivity at 2 percent. All 17 are local cases.

25 new recoveries reported: National Recovery rate stands at 94,5 percent and active cases go down to 212. As of 4 November 2020, Zimbabwe has now recorded 8427 Cases 7967 recoveries and 248 Deaths,” said the Ministry of Heath and Child Care.

Zimbabwe has not been testing for corona virus and so the extend of the virus in the community is an unknown. Zimbabwe has hardly ever carried out 1 000 tests per day even at the time when the official corona virus cases were high. 

American has done a pretty good job of testing but not so well in tracing and isolating; the country has nearly 9.6 million cases and nearly 1/4 million deaths out of a population of 330 million. So less than 0.1% of the population in the US has died of corona virus. Even if this figure was ten times or 1% in Zimbabwe, it is easy to see how the corona virus death can easily be attributed to other causes. 

Zimbabwe and the world at large is thankful that the corona virus has not been as deadly as ebola.

Corona virus has not only been a serious threat to one’s health and life it has also caused serious disruption to economic activities. Some economic sectors such as the air travel industry has laid off staff and scrapped many of the planes. 

Many industrialised nation are projecting their economy will shrink by as much as 10% this year and the economic recovery to pre-covid 19 level will take 10 years or more. 

For Zimbabwe the effect of covid-19 cannot be assessed in terms how much the economy will shrink because there was not much economic activity before the corona virus pandemic. The country’s economic was all but destroyed in the period 2000 to 2008 as a consequences of the collapse of the country’s agricultural sector and the hyper inflation soaring to 500 billion percent. The economy has never recovered. 

Before the corona virus pandemic unemployment was already a nauseating 90% plus, basic services such as education and health care were barely functioning and 34% of the population was already living in extreme poverty. 

A number of Zimbabweans who had left the country as political and/or economic refugees have been forced to return after the pandemic outbreak. These people will not be returning so time soon as there will be few employment opportunities in those nations whilst they too try to recover. The returnees will only swell up Zimbabwe’s mountain of unemployed. 

By the end of 2019, two years after Mnangagwa seized power in the November 2017 military and launched his “Zimbabwe is open for business!”, it was clear the much hope for flood of investors would never materialise. Investors could see that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs. And so they shied away. 

Zanu PF has once again resorted to printing money to pay its bills feeling inflation which has soared to 838%. Education and health care have now but completely collapsed as government has failed to pay the teachers and health care workers a living wage. By the end of the years the number of Zimbabweans living in extreme poverty will have surged way above 34%!

The economic situation in Zimbabwe is simply intolerable. There is no future in this! 

Zimbabwe’s economic mess is largely a man-made problem as it is the consequences of 40 years of Zanu PF gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. If Zimbabwe had been a healthy and functioning democracy, the people would have removed Zanu PF from power decades ago. Zanu PF has routinely rig the elections to stay in power and the people have wrung their hands in helpless despair.  

As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic recovery. None! 

Zanu PF has dragged this nation to the very edge of the abyss; if the people do not end the dictatorship now, time is running out, the regime will drag them over the edge! And the people will only have themselves to blame for it because it has always been in their power to end the dictatorship if they really wanted to!

Thank God, corona virus has not been as deadly as Ebola. Still its economic footprint is huge, millions more Zimbabweans now live in extreme poverty and, without a competent government, the country’s future is grime. 

Efforts to clear debt arrears hit snag after "unnamed financier dumps Zimbabwe" - we are in a debt hole, stop digging N Garikai

 “Zimbabwe's efforts to clear its arrears with international lenders who include the World Bank and the African Development Bank have hit a snag after an unnamed financier dumped the country halfway through negotiations for a funding deal,” reported Fingaz.

“Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube told Parliament that Government had gone back to the drawing board in a bid to secure new financiers to help extinguish its international obligations.

“Ncube said the country had resumed its token payments to contain debt accumulation.”

The sheer foolishness of the whole hare brain scheme beggars belief. What exactly was Professor Mthuli Ncube trying to achieve here? Has he gone mad?

Zimbabwe is a Banana Republic in every sense of that phrase! The country has failed to revive its own economy; the economy has been in total meltdown although the regime insists it growing and on target to be a middle income by vision 2030; and, worst of all, has done nothing to stop the haemorrhage through mismanagement and corruption. 

Zimbabwe could pay off its outstanding debts and bankroll its economic recovery if it could rein in the criminal waste of resources through mismanagement and corruption. In 2015, in one of his very rare moments of openness, the late Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe, admitted the country had been swindled out of US$ 15 billion in diamond revenue alone. 

Of course, Mugabe knew who the swindlers were; it was he and his cabinet that granted the diamond mining concession and approved the fragrant disregard of the country’s laws and regulation including the failure to keep any record of quantity and quality of diamonds, to whom the diamonds were sold and for how much, who are the partners and how much they received, etc. It was all a bluff talking of swindlers when the Zanu PF regime itself was responsible to facilitating the looting.

In 2012 Africa Canada, a Canadian body monitoring the world wide trade in diamonds, reported that Mugabe earned US$ 2 billion from looted diamonds. Mugabe; Mnangagwa; the top brass in the Army, Police and CIO; and a few others in the Zanu PF ruling elite are the Godfathers of corruption and have looted the nation blind. 

When Mnangagwa seized power following the 2017 military coup that toppled Mugabe, he promised “zero tolerance on corruption”. He has done nothing to end corruption; indeed, the secretive diamond mining concessions have not only been retained but extended to other areas such Platinum and Gold mining. The looting under Mugabe has continued under Mnangagwa. 

Zimbabwe is losing at least US$ 5 billion per year through gross mismanagement and rampant corruption this is simply unsustainable for a nation whose GPD is US$ 10 billion or so. As long as nothing is done to stop this criminal waste of resources it is foolish to even think there could ever be any meaningful economic recovery. 

What Minister Ncube was trying to do was to borrow money from this “unnamed financier” to pay off the WB debt. With its WB debt finally cleared, Zimbabwe was going to borrow money from the WB. Why would the WB grand Zimbabwe fresh loans knowing the country still has the serious problem of corruption and therefore unlikely to put the loan to productive use? 

The “unnamed financier” was going to change Zimbabwe even higher interest rates than WB is charging. If you are in a hole; for Pete’s sake, stop digging! 

Until Zimbabwe ends the curse of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption which are the root causes of the criminal waste of human and material resources; there will be no meaningful economic recovery in the country. 

It is crystal clear that Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies will never ever end corruption, they are the Godfathers of corruption. And so to end corruption the country must first end the Zanu PF dictatorship. We must bite the bullet and demand the implementation of the democratic reforms designed to end Zanu PF’s carte blanche powers to rig elections. 

Holding free, fair and credible elections is Zimbabwe’s ticket out of the economic and political hell-on-earth we find ourselves stuck in! Borrowing money from loan sharks to pay off existing debts will only land us in even worse financial trouble. 

"The corrupt will be arrested. No one is above the law!" - institutionalised corruption, there are no laws P Guramatunhu

 “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!