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Mugabe should walk the talk this time

Opinion & Analysis
THE 6th Zanu PF Congress reaches its climax today with President Robert Mugabe expected to make “major” announcements before it ends.

THE 6th Zanu PF Congress reaches its climax today with President Robert Mugabe expected to make “major” announcements before it ends. But the tragedy is that this Congress will not be remembered for providing solutions to the economic crisis facing the country.

NewsDay Editorial

Instead, it will most likely be remembered for setting up the altar upon which Zimbabwe’s first ever female Vice-President, Joice Mujuru, was slaughtered. Her crime was daring to dream succeeding Mugabe.

Mugabe said all Cabinet ministers and top civil servants involved in corruption risked prosecution and dismissal once substantial evidence linking them to the allegations was gathered. But what we found worrisome is that Mugabe has in the past made countless similar threats, but no action has ever been taken.

This is just mere talk that has been around for many years, but the powers that be have not walked that talk. We have every reason to believe that again nothing will happen this time around.

In his key note speech, Mugabe indicated that even ministers and their deputies as well as senior civil servants implicated in corruption would not be spared. We will be there to remind him of his pledge several months down the line. Actually, we have always been reminding of past pledges, yet he has never lifted a finger.

It is about time that as a nation, we go beyond rhetoric and be decisive in dealing with the vice of corruption which has wreaked havoc the economy.

What is unfortunate is that the consequences of such corrupt tendencies have been seen in the poverty that has become an every day experience for the common person in the street.

Ordinary people have been looking up to the Zanu PF Congress for clear-cut indications that their leaders are serious in dealing with the challenges facing the nation. But in a nutshell, as far as one can see, this Congress was just another dumb squib.

All that has happened was for the powers that be to flex their muscles and show the lesser beings who is in charge. It was all about power. But power as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, is tragic.

We appeal to the authorities to use their power as a channel to serve the nation and its people because beyond the Congress, when all the mighty have fallen and all “enemies” vanquished, Zanu PF will still have to confront and exorcise the demons of poverty and socio-economic malaise.

Why Zanu PF should have taken an opportunity to deal with during this Congress is the fact that since 2011, over 4 600 companies have shut down and more than 55 400 jobs lost. Now you can imagine — when you consider the families of those that lost their jobs — the real number of people affected.

It should be a blessing in disguise that the MDCs are no longer part of government and the Western–imposed sanctions have been extensively relaxed, if not almost totally removed, because now Zanu PF no longer have a smokescreen to justify their ineptitude and incapacity to resolve the economic logjam.

The key thing is that the Congress has just been a week-long talk shop, and for other, a night of long knifes, but tomorrow is a new day and there is a lot of work that needs to done in the post–Congress period.