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NewsDay

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‘Zanu PF wasting time, resources on succession politics’

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POLITICAL analysts and opposition party officials yesterday blasted Zanu PF government officials for spending most of their time and State resources

POLITICAL analysts and opposition party officials yesterday blasted Zanu PF government officials for spending most of their time and State resources on their party’s succession politics instead of addressing the economic meltdown.

VENERANDA LANGA SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER

Speaking at a public discussion forum organised by the Mass Public Opinion Institute in Harare, the activists accused Zanu PF officials of fiddling while the country faced developmental stagnation and serious climate change-induced hunger.

“Poverty is now very high and it has been made worse by corruption, poor governance and the political crisis, and those people who are burning Zanu PF are throwing Grace [Mugabe, First Lady] into the furnace and she is accelerating how Zanu PF is burning,” said Bulawayo South legislator Eddie Cross (MDC-T).

“Land tenure is an important issue in Zimbabwe and it does not matter how much fertiliser you give to people, if you do not provide land security there is no solution to rural insecurity and poverty,” he said.

Independent analyst Vince Musewe said President Robert Mugabe’s government had, over the past seven years, produced 14 economic blueprints that were not implemented.

“We have blueprints, but government is like a lion that eats everything that moves. It spends a meagre $130 million per year on infrastructure which is lower thanwhat they give Mugabe when he travels in a year. What is killing this country is predatory politics and corruption where it takes 17 years to build a 40-kilometre airport road,” Musewe said.

Transparency International Zimbabwe executive director Mary Jane Ncube said corruption had affected infrastructural growth in communication, water, energy and other sectors.

“Corruption in the productive sector is widespread and is affecting the poor who depend on the infrastructure. The private sector is susceptible to corruption because of lack of compliance and implementation of procedure. By 2020 Africa will lose $20 trillion to infrastructural corruption,” Ncube said.

Former German Vice-Minister Klaus Juergen Hedrich said there was need for tolerance on divergent views whether religious, political or economic.

Coalition for Market and Legal Solutions director Rejoice Ngwenya said it was high time the Zanu PF government admitted failure.

“The problem in this country is we have been stuck for 34 years with a non-delivering leadership which does not admit failure,” Ngwenya said.