LGBT Rights

No to Mnangagwa, No to Chiwenga, No to Zanu-PF

VP Chiwenga: Bring back our doctors.... No to thugery and nonsense.

Mnangagwa is sincere about change - why then did he rig the elections

“What kind of leaders would the armed struggle throw up?” Was the rhetorical question Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, and the other leaders asked themselves. 

“And are those the men and women we would want to rule India?” 

India did not wage an armed struggle to end British rule and when the country finally gained her independence the nation ripped its reward - it had competent men and women humble enough to accept that they are fallible mortals. 

Nehru and others embraced the democratic ethos that every citizen has right to a meaningful say in who governed the country. And, more significant, embraced the possibility that armed struggle leaders would be tempted to impose their will on the unarmed civilians. 

Zimbabwe’s armed struggle forced the white colonialists to give up power but only to for the liberators to set themselves up as the new oppressors. “Zanu PF yakashungunura nyika akashungirira vanhu!” (Zanu PF liberated the country but not the people!) as my late mother would say. 

Our war of independence did throw up leaders who believe that they have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe as they saw fit.

“We are the stockholders of Zimbabwe and everyone else is a stakeholder!” said Victor Matemadanda. He was expressing a view passionately held by Zanu PF members and the war veterans. As stockholders, they have the veto, exemplified by Zanu PF’s dictatorial powers to rig elections to guarantee no regime change. We, ordinary people, the stakeholders, have the meaningless vote as elections were routinely rigged to deliver Zanu PF landslide victories. 

The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and political problems is the country’s failure to remove Zanu PF from office even when there was overwhelming evidence the party’s leaders were corrupt and incompetent. 

The corollary is equally true; the only solution to Zimbabwe’s economic and political problems is stopping Zanu PF rigging elections to ensure free, fair and credible election. 

In other words, the one change the nation has been dying for these last 38 years is to have democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections implemented. Without free and fair elections all hope of a just and peaceful political system and economic recovery and prosperity will remain a pipedream!

“I am aware that many will have a difficult Christmas,” Mnangagwa acknowledge in his Christmas message to the nation. “I encourage all of us to be patient, resilient and to work harder in collective unity, as we create a better, democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe for all.”

This is all wishful thinking of course Mnangagwa has just rigged the recent elections and thus failed to deliver on the one change without which there will never be any meaningful political and economic change.

For the last 38 years, Zanu PF has promised the nation a better life and yet years after year the situation has got worse and worse. Mnangagwa is asking the nation to be patient. Patient for five more years of heart-breaking human misery whilst Zanu PF blundering from pillar to post! 

And worst of all, Mnangagwa is asking the people of Zimbabwe to be patient and let him remain in office until 2023. If Zanu PF remained in power until 2023 we can be 100% certain the party will rig those elections to extend its rule by yet another five years! 

The people of Zimbabwe should have never allowed Zanu PF thugs to deny them their birth-right to a meaningful vote. We have allowed the thugs to ride roughshod over our freedoms and rights and have paid dearly for our folly and after 38 years, with the nation in a real economic and political mess the cry to end the madness of appeasing Zanu PF thugs is deafening. Sadly there a few who still want to appease Zanu PF thugs!

“I get attacked for having faith in President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s sincerity in changing Zimbabwe,” twittered Trevor Ncube, CEO and owner of NewsDay, The Standard and Zimbabwe Independent newspapers.

“I perfectly understand why some people are angry with me. I have met the man and am convinced he is committed to durable change. In any case I can’t see anybody else with potential to deliver change.” 

No Mr Ncube, you think you understand what is going on here but actually you have no clue. Let us just consider three key points: 

1.   Your faith in Mnangagwa’s commitment to deliver durable change is clearly misplaced. The only durable change in Zimbabwe has to start with implementing the democratic reforms and holding free, fair and credible elections. Mnangagwa has stubbornly refused to implement even one reform since taking over from Mugabe and then blatantly rig the 2018 elections. He did not stop there, he went on even further to shoot dead six civilians, just to underline that he would shed even more innocent blood in his resolve to hang on to power at all cost. 

Lest we forget, Mnangagwa and his junta staged a military coup for the sole purpose of wrestling power from Mugabe and the the G40 faction. And before the coup it was Mnangagwa and his junta who had played the major role in creating and retaining the Zanu PF dictatorship. Mnangagwa has no intention of dismantling the dictatorship and the commitment to change, Mr Ncube is talking about is delusion.

2.   “I can’t see anybody else with potential to deliver change!” Of all the feeble excuses that takes the biscuit. So because Ncube cannot see anyone else capable of delivering change he going to support a corrupt and murderous tyrant whose has already proven beyond all doubt that he does not want change!

3.   The political environment in Zimbabwe is like a lifeless sewage pond and hence the reason there are no quality leaders on either side of the political divide. 

The way forward is for country to appoint an interim administration whose number one task will be to implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU. The reforms will free state institutions like ZEC, Police and Judiciary to play their part in delivering free, fair and credible elections. The reforms will also end the present culture of stifle debated and democratic competition, this will air the pond to allow life to return and thrive.

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta rigged the recent elections. They have no mandate to govern. They are illegitimate. They must step down.

  

Fighting in the liberations war is no excuse for Zanu PF thugs to grant unto themselves the dictatorial powers to deny the ordinary Zimbabweans their birth-right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. It is tragic that this tyrannical mentality was ever allowed to take root in Zimbabwe and to last all these last 38 years. It must be stamped out immediately! 

What Zimbabwe needs right now is man, men, woman or women who will stand-up and look Mnangagwa and his junta straight in the eyes and tell them in no uncertain terms that they are illegitimate and must step down! 

“All right, I'll go in there for Dorothy. Wicked Witch or no Wicked Witch, guards or no guards, I'll tear them apart!” said the cowardly lion in Wizard of Oz. Next line he was asking everyone “Talk me out of it!”

We are looking for a courageous lion and we got someone worse that the cowardly lion! 

“I have faith in Mnangagwa’s sincerity to deliver change!” says Trevor Ncube. Zimbabwe’s dandy-lion has not only talked himself out of standing up to ED but is now talking us all to follow his cowardly and foolish example!

After 38 years of appeasing Zanu PF thugs at the cost of dragging the whole nation right up to the very edge of the abyss; it is time to say enough is enough. It is time for this nation to deal with its thorny problems and end the heart breaking human suffering and deaths brought on by our failure to accept that our war of independence did throw up corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical leaders whom we have foolishly rewarded with absolute power. 

Mnangagwa and his junta are illegitimate and they must step down; this is not negotiable!

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

Chiwenga threatens....

”Cde President, you personally stretched out your hand to the opposition after Zanu PF’s July 30 landslide victory. But the opposition spurned that hand,” said VP Constantino Chiwenga at the Annual Zanu PF People’s National Conference.

“You have since withdrawn the well-stretched hand. All of us follow, principally those of us in Parliament are very happy that our Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs (Ziyambi Ziyambi), acting in his capacity as leader of the House (in Parliament), sent a clear signal of paying back the opposition in the hard coin they have tossed us. They have chosen to disrespect our leader who is the Head of State of our nation (President Mnangagwa).

“We have no reason to handle them with the respect they have voluntarily rejected.”

This is just Zanu PF, the bid bad wolf, flexing big bully muscle!

The party blatantly rigged the elections denying over 3 millions Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote; refused to release the verified voters’ roll although this is a legal requirement; refused to free up the public media; in its affidavit submitted to the Con-Court, ZEC had three different vote tally results, proof the figures had been cooked up; etc.

All the international election observers have dismissed the elections as flawed and illegal. Even the British who had been bending over backwards to help Mnangagwa regime to be accepted back into the world community ever since last November’s coup, could not gloss over the blatant vote rigging. The outgoing UK Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ms Catriano Laing’s, parting shot to the regime was “the electoral playing field was not level”!

“The electoral commission (ZEC) lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” EU Election Observer Mission said in its final report.

“Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

If the elections had “failed to meet international standard” there is only one conclusion: Zanu PF rigged the elections, the party does not have the mandate and therefore the regime is illegitimate. 

MDC Alliance should have never agreed to participate in these elections without first implementing the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Nelson Chamisa et al are only joining “Zanu PF is illegitimate” bandwagon for the selfish purpose of wringing gravy train concessions from Zanu PF.

Even if Nelson Chamisa had acknowledged Mnangagwa as the winner of the recent elections without the Con-Court challenge; that would not have made all the glaring flaws and illegalities go away. The EU Observers’ conclusion that “the elections had failed to meet international standards” was based on the observed glaring flaws and illegalities and not on what Chamisa did or didn’t do!

  

“We have no reason to handle them with the respect!” This is an ominous threat that all who knows Zanu PF’s history would be very foolish to dismiss

.

Zanu PF’s hunger for absolute power and the political influence and wealth it has brought is insatiable. The party has shown again and again that it will do whatever it dimmed necessary to secure power be it rigging elections and even shedding innocent blood. Zanu PF has murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and retain the de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship. 

The shooting of seven civilians on 1st August 2018 was to quell the protest against another rigged elections and a timely reminder the regime would not hesitate to shed more innocent blood in its drive to hang on to power, regardless of it being illegitimate.

Zimbabweans must now brace themselves for the double whammy of the economic hardships from the worsening economic situation, on the one hand. By rigging the elections Zanu PF has just confirmed Zimbabwe is still a pariah state and thus killed all hopes of any meaningful economic recovery. Investors, local and foreign, do not do business in a pariah state.

On the other hand the nation will be subjected to increased political repression. The worsening economic situation will force the people to protest their suffering and Zanu PF, fearful of losing its iron grip on power will step up the political repression. 

Zanu PF blame MDC Alliance’s refusal to acknowledge Mnangagwa as the winner to justify its “shoot to kill” against the nation, a case of collective punishment. As far as Zanu PF is concerned it is “paying back the opposition in the hard coin they have tossed us!” This is just the classical case of the bad wolf, up stream, accusing the lamb of mudding the water!

Like it or not, Zanu PF thugs now know they will never revive the economy and so they have given up all hope of winning free, fair and credible elections. They are in power and are going to hold on to power by rigging elections, period.

If we are serious about reviving the Zimbabwe economy then we must be firm and resolute in our demand for good and accountable government. When we say we demand free, fair and credible elections, we must mean it and there is no better way to show that than punishing those who rig elections.

Zanu PF has rig elections for the last 38 years and we have allowed the party to get away with it. There can be no better time to stop the rot than now. Zanu PF rigged the 30 July 2018 elections rewarding the thugs with high office is the most foolish thing we can ever do as the regime is now abusing state power to impose itself and consolidating its dictatorial rule. 

Zanu PF rigged the elections, the party must be pressured to step down. This is the only way out of the political and economic mess Zimbabwe finds itself in today.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess, a man-made hell-on-earth, because the nation has blundered from pillar to post. Time and time again the nation has gone for the ease solution even when it was clear as day it was the wrong solution. We are in a deep hole and there is no down-hill way out.

Forcing Zanu PF to step down is the uphill solution and only solution! By allowing Zanu PF to get away with vote rigging these last 38 years has only make it hard for us to these thugs to give up power. Allowing them to stay in power till 2023 will make it even harder to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections and to force them to step down afterwards.

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

ED ASKED to implement reforms

THE Netherlands ambassador to Zimbabwe Barbara van Hellemond has urged President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government to accelerate the process of aligning all laws, policies and legal instruments with the Constitution.

"The Constitution of Zimbabwe was made a supreme law in 2013; five years later, many laws are still not aligned to it," Hellemond said.

"Progress has been made, but it is not enough. The Netherlands Embassy stands with the United Nations and other international development partners in urging the government to accelerate the process of aligning all laws, policies and legal instruments with the Constitution of Zimbabwe.”

There are two things to be said here:

1. Calling for reforms is one thing, calling for reforms and meaning it is another. Zanu PF has learned to ignore the opposition MDC leaders’ demands for reforms, red lines ultimatums, “No reform, no elections!” party resolutions, etc., etc.  MDC has always participated in the elections with not even one reform in place; Zanu PF knows that and so has never ever considered it necessary for the party to concede to any opposition demands. 

It is now over five years since Zimbabwe approved the new constitution, as ambassador Hellemond has rightly pointed out. So we should be seeing the coercive stick being wielded and used. The EU, should be talking of extending the targeted sanctions against Zanu PF leaders, for example, and force the regime’s leaders to sit up and pay attention.

2. Zanu PF has taken full advantage of its carte blanche dictatorial power to rig the recent elections; the horse has bolted, surely all attention must be on how to get the horse back into the stable and not on bolting the stable door. 

Even if Zanu PF was to implement every reform and align every law this will not get us out of the present predicament of having a vote rigging regime in office. Zanu PF has rigged elections for the last 38 years and, instead of being punished for committing high treason, the thugs have been rewarded with, not just power, but absolute power. 

Allowing Zanu PF to get away with vote rigging has set a dangerous precedence and the nation has paid dearly for it in lost treasure, wasted opportunities, human suffering and over 30 000 cold blooded political murders. The only sure way to end the curse of rigged elections is by making sure all those guilty of this treasonous act are punished and are never ever again rewarded for it!

We want help ending the folly of rewarding those who rig elections and end this curse once and once for all. The last thing we want is people encouraging us to bury our heads in the sand and pretend Zanu PF will reform itself out of office, especially when those people will never allow such foolishness in their own country!

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

African election observers and others endorsed Mnangagwa and Zanu PF’s victory, while Western observers, mainly the Americans and Europeans, were skeptical, stopping short of rejecting the outcome,” said Dumisani Muleya, The Zimbabwe Independent Editor, in his editorial comment.

Mr Editor, you are wrong on both counts!

Both SADC and AU did not “endorse Mnangagwa and Zanu PF’s victory”. What their respective election observer teams did was confined their comments to the “peaceful campaign period including voting day”. They were very clear not to mention such glaring flaws and illegalities as the failure by ZEC to produce something as basic as the verified voters’ roll, the blatant cheating in adding up the votes, the shooting of civilians on 1^stAugust which was clearly meant to cower the populous to stop all protests against yet another rigged election, etc.

Other elections observers also noted the relative peace in this year’s elections compared to the wanton violence of say the 2008 elections. They also reported the glaring flaws and irregularities. The Americans, Canadians, the Commonwealth, the EU and almost every other observer said the elections were “biased, unfair, playing field was not level” and, most important of all, that the process “failed to meet acceptable international standards”. That is just diplomatic language for the elections were rigged and therefore Mnangagwa and Zanu PF have no mandate to govern the country.

President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF regime are illegitimate, period.

It is not for SADC, the AU or anyone else in the international community to spell this out everything to us that Zanu PF is illegitimate and much less what should happens next. We must figure that one out for ourselves, admit it and, most important of all, decide what to do about it.

Are we going to bury our heads in the sand, as we have always done and pretend the elections were free, fair and credible and reward Zanu PF with absolute power as before? Or are we going to finally end the insanity of the last 38 years, admit the elections were rigged and, for once, hold Zanu PF to account for this treasonous act?

“All the while, Mnangagwa and his administration have come up with austerity measures to halt the economic tailspin. However, diplomats, from the West and East alike, say Mnangagwa’s reform agenda is all foam and no beer!” continue Muleya.

“This is where talks come in. The involvement of former Kenyan chief justice Dr Willy Mutunga, as we exclusively report in this edition, is opportune.

“Zimbabwe needs dialogue and a healing process. The form and content of the talks as well as the ultimate objective can always be discussed.”

Could not agree with you more, Dumisani; the Zanu PF’s economic policies and programmes are indeed empty rhetoric with no substance. The regime is blundering from pillar to post and meanwhile the country’s economic meltdown is getting worse and worse, dragging the nation closer and closer to the edge of the precipitous abyss.

Yes the country needs “talks” but not the talks to get Mnangagwa and Chamisa to talk to each other!

What the people of Zimbabwe need right now is the courage to confront and confound the country’s demons. The only dialogue the nation needs with Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs is to tell they rigged the recent elections, they have no mandate to rule and therefore they must step down. Any attempt to hang on to power will only be viewed as holding the nation to ransom and will not be tolerated. What happens next is for others to decide not them!

By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka

Need transparency to end diamond looting!!!!!

“The discovery of huge deposits of diamonds in Marange, eastern Zimbabwe, in the mid-2000s came at a time when Zimbabwe was facing crises on multiple fronts,” said Global Witness in its recent report.

“However, rather than injecting much-needed life into an economy in severe decline, Zimbabwe’s diamonds were ruthlessly exploited by the elite under the Mugabe-led government and came to be far better known for their association with human rights abuses, corruption and looting.” 

This is very true, the discovery of diamonds has enabled Zanu PF to bankroll extensive and very expensive vote rigging and vote buying schemes that have help the regime remain in power. So instead of the bounty from diamonds being a blessing, povo’s salvation, it has become the people’s curse as it paid well those keeping them in servitude! 

In a less guarded moment in 2016, the then President Mugabe admitted the country had been “swindled” of $15 billion worth of diamond revenue. He never arrested any of the swindlers. 

"As we focus on recovering our economy, we must shed misbehaviours and acts of ill-discipline which have characterised the past. Acts of corruption must stop,” said the incoming President Mnangagwa after seizing power from Mugabe in November 2017 coup.

Mnangagwa has been in power for over a year now and has yet to arrest even one of the swindlers and recover the first dollar of the looted fortune. Indeed, the looting has never stopped as former Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament government continue to receive 1/6th of expected diamond revenue an year after Mugabe’s confession. The new Minister has never reported of any significant change.

Global Witness is well aware of the continued looting in Marange and has ventured to recommend steps to end the looting. 

“To help to achieve a transparent, accountable and well-governed diamond sector,” concluded Global Witness, “we are urging the Zimbabwean government to take much-needed steps including:

• Making all beneficial owners of diamond companies, and any private investors, public;
• Publishing detailed information about all diamond mining related revenue flows, disaggregated by company, year, and type of revenue stream;
• Publication of any joint venture contracts signed with private investors;
• Requiring risk based supply chain due diligence by companies trading in Marange diamonds;
• Preventing the risk of the security sector receiving off-budget funding through control or ownership positions in diamond companies that is free from parliamentary oversight.”

Global Witness’ report is available at www.globalwitness.org or via Spotlight Zimbabwe. 

As noted above, President Mnangagwa has done nothing stamp out corruption not because he did not know what to do ‘to achieve a transparent, accountable and well-governed diamond sector”. He has been at the heart of the Mugabe administration for the last 37 years; he knows the swindlers, how they were swindling the diamonds, how much, etc. etc.; and would have rounded them all up within days, if he had so wished. He did not because he lacked the political will to do it.

“You can’t expect us to reform ourselves out of power,” boasted Professor Jonathan Moyo, Mugabe’s most prolific propagandist and strategist and Zanu PF Minister and Politburo member. 

As we know, Mugabe, Moyo and a few others Zanu PF G40 faction members were forced out of power on 15 November 2017 military coup. So they were “reformed” out of power by the gun, so to speak!

The wholesale looting of Zimbabwe’s resources, especially of the Marange and Chiadzwa diamonds, have bankrolled Zanu PF’s vote rigging and vote buying schemes. “You can’t expect Zanu PF to stop looting, to achieve a well-governed diamond sector and, most significantly, thus to reform itself out of power!” to paraphrase Professor Moyo.

By blatantly rigging the recent elections, President Mnangagwa and his junta regime have nailed their colours for all to see. The looting continues. Saques continuar! Vote rigging continues! Voto fraudulento continua!

This nation has waited for the last 38 years for Zanu PF thugs to do the right and honourable thing of stopping the looting; holding free, fair and credible elections; etc. Instead the looting, vote rigging, etc. have all continued and even got worse; dragging the nation deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth we now find ourselves stuck in. 

The only realistic hope of putting an end to these cursed Zanu PF cultures of looting and voto fraudulento is for the nation to finally grasp the nettle and demand that President Mnangagwa and his junta step down from high office. The regime rigged the recent elections, as all the respectable election observers have readily confirmed, and so the regime is illegitimate. 

We have allowed Zanu PF to loot and rig elections and get away with it setting a dangerous precedence and one we must now put right. No one who rigs elections and is, per se, illegitimate will be allowed to govern. 

Those who rig elections are committing high treason and  instead of being rewarded with high office they will from henceforth be punished! This is the new precedence we want to set and one worthy of our resolve to make Zimbabwe a democratic nation governed by competent and accountable leaders!

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

Mnangagwa pampers chiefs but fails to pay Doctors

Pampering the Chiefs is a top priority to President Mnangagwa because it was the Chiefs, together with the other traditional leaders and Zanu PF operatives, who delivered the 60% or so rural vote for ED and Zanu PF in the recent elections.  

“Observers widely reported on efforts to undermine the free expression of the will of electors, through inducements, intimidation and coercion against prospective voters to try to ensure a vote in favour of the ruling party,” reported the EU Election Observer Mission in its final report.

“Such practices also included direct threats of violence, pressure on people to attend rallies, partisan actions by traditional leaders, a collection of voter registration slips and other measures to undermine confidence in the secrecy of the vote, manipulation of food aid and agricultural programmes and other misuses of state resources.”

Even Zimbabwe’s own government-appointed body, Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission has confirmed how the rural voters were reduced to little more than medieval serfs forever beholden to the whims of the overbearing landlords, Zanu PF. 

Last year the Chiefs assured Mnangagwa that they would campaign for him and Zanu PF in the coming elections, just as they have always done for Mugabe. They kept their promise, as stated above, and the Kadoma conference was about Chiefs demanding their reward.

If Zimbabwe had been a healthy and functional democratic nation then both Mnangagwa and the Chiefs would be in serious trouble for denying the rural people their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote. Zimbabwe is a dictatorship and so instead of being punished for high treason the Chiefs were rewarded new trucks and Zanu PF rigged the elections to retain power. 

“If truth be told, these traditional leaders who only serve the purpose of perpetuating Zanu-PF's stranglehold on power should not be a priority given the challenges facing this economy and the scarcity of resources,” continue the editorial.

“The situation in our public health facilities is so untenable that one wonders how our political leaders are able to sleep peacefully at night — perhaps because they and their families access health service abroad where healthcare workers are well taken care of by their own governments and have no need to embark on job action.”

Yes, the health, economy, education, you name it, the situation in Zimbabwe is untenable. The truth that MUST be told, is we have all watched the health, economy etc. all sink into the sorry state they are in today because we did not have the courage to accept reality. For the last 38 years, we have pretended Zimbabwe was a healthy and functional democracy because we did not want to admit it is a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship. 

After 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule and with the country up to its eyes in the man-made mess surely we must now grasp the nettle and deal with this elephant in the room - Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party dictatorship.  

Our challenge is to force Zanu PF to step down so we can finally implement the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair elections. We must stop the curse of rigged elections and the pariah state. 

As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs, they will continue to pamper lawless Chiefs at the expense of a collapsing health service. We can pretend the government has its priorities mixed up and discuss what it should do until we are blue in the face; the wasteful abuse of resources will continue! 

Ncube abandons TSP

Ever since Zimbabwe attain her independence in 1980 the country’s public sector has grown in leaps and bounds. President Robert Mugabe needed a bloated public sector to soak up his political appointees the building blocks of his power base. 

The size of the army, for example, expanded from Smith’s two brigades to five. Smith needed two brigades to fight the civil war, Mugabe had no war and so why did he need five brigades, the fifth being the now infamous Fifth Brigade that committed the Gukurahundi massacres!

The bloated public sector has been a curse to the nation because it crowded out the wealth-generating private sector, at best otherwise it was wasteful of resources. And even parastatals like ZESA and NRZ, which should produce wealth, have to become a heavy burden and the byword for mismanagement and corruption. 

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has promised to retrench the bloated public sector in his 2018 to 2020 Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) economic blueprint. This is not the first time the government has promised to do this. Zanu PF acknowledged the need to reduce the bloated public sector as far back as 1990 when the party adopted the country’s first of two five-year Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP). 

The ESAP programmes failed to reduce the bloated public sector because the government lacked the political will. Now the regime tells it is not going to retrench any public sector workers because of it now too expensive to do so.

“For example, an employee of 20 years earning $1 500 per month at an average service under the Statutory Redundancy Package of two times monthly salary for every year served will need $60 000 as package, $30 000 as one third commutation of the pension and $10 000 for other benefits,” explained Permanent secretary in the ministry Finance, George Guvamatanga.

“It means finding $100 000 tomorrow for that person. Even if you are to say it should be payable in a normal pay-back period, for any retrenchment to be viable, it should be paid back in two years.

“This kind of structure does not payback in two years, it is therefore not viable and sustainable for government to consider a redundancy programme at this particular moment in time, it is misplaced.”

Finance Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube, concurred “We are only dealing with fundamentals; retrenchments are costly at this time,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s private sector has all but collapse sending unemployment into the stratosphere of 90% and, in turn, forcing government revenue to shrink water in a shallow pool. So more and more of the little-collected revenue has gone to pay the bloated public sector wage bill; it is now guzzling up 84% plus - way above the norm of 30 to 40% max. 

In 2016 President Mugabe admitted to the government being “swindled” out of $15 billion diamond revenue. The nation expects President Mnangagwa to deal with such problem after he took over in November 2017. It has been over a year now since and still not even one diamond swindler has ever been arrested and not one dollar recovered. 

Minister Ncube promised to attract investors in pursuance of President Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call. The flood of investors has never materialised. The country’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections has left no investor in any doubt that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state, investors do not do business in pariah states. 

Minister Ncube is set to visit IMF and the WB next month to ask them to renew their budgetary support of Zimbabwe. He has promised to pay the two Zimbabwe’s $2 billion outstanding debt service changes bill in two years and, no doubt, would have made a very good impression if he went there a fat cheque, first down payment on the bill with money saved from retrenched workers and/or recovered from the diamond swindlers. Instead, he is going to IMF and WB officials his TSP plan is dead in the water complete the usual string of feeble excuses.

“We are only dealing with fundamentals; retrenchments are costly at this time,” Minister Ncube will repeat. He will crown his presentation with a request for funding. 

The IMF and WB will tell him to come back when the fundamentals a right. When Zimbabwe is ready to grasp the nettle; retrench the bloated public service; hold free, fair and credible elections; arrest swindlers; etc. Until that happens, Zimbabwe will not get another dollar from the IMF and WB over and above the billions of dollars the country got in the 1980s and 1990s.

Zimbabwe’s bloated public sector is a burden to the national economy and it can be resolved but in the context of meaningful economic recovery when all the other problems of corruption, democratic accountability, etc. are dealt with holistically and honestly. It is impossible to have all those ducks lined up without first making sure all the leaders are accountable to the people, that is why we must have free, fair and credible elections, it is the pre-requisite for economic recovery.

By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka