MDC leader Welshman Ncube has said the Zimbabwean leadership has failed senior citizens by running down the economy for over 15 years, wiping away the elderly people’s pensions and leaving them them in near destitution.
Addressing over 150 pensioners at SR Coronation, an old people’s home in Bulawayo, where his party donated 250 blankets and a television set at the weekend, Ncube said it was disheartening that the country no longer had any safety nets for the elderly.
“While we work hard for the future, we should never forget the foundation of our society, which is you (elderly),” he said.
“It is unfortunate that for the last 15 years we have seen a continuous degradation of our country in just about everything. Whatever pensions that you had worked for have all been wiped out. Nothing remains. Whatever your children worked for up until now has been equally wiped out,” said Ncube.
The MDC leader said the current scenario was tantamount to cruelty.
“It is difficult to imagine greater cruelty than a government and leadership which wipes out the savings of a nation, reducing everybody to a state of poverty, a country where there is no longer any social welfare, there is no safety nets for the elderly, the senior citizens,” he said.
Ncube said the plight of the elderly was made sad by the fact that “at one time, this country had a very strong social security system”.
“The generation of leadership that we have has destroyed all that. We all know that Zimbabwe is a very rich country. There is no debate about that. We only have one problem, which is the failure of leadership.
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“It is our leadership which has failed you senior citizens,” added Ncube, who is also Industry and Commerce minister in the inclusive government.
