Manicaland Minister of State for Provincial Affairs Mandi Chimene’s recent threats to diamond mining companies are nothing less than worrying.
NewsDay Editorial
The statements are symptomatic of a doomed country suffering from a crippling leadership deficiency at a time Zimbabweans are staring starvation of great magnitude.
It is unfathomable that the statements were uttered by a Minister of State who should be carrying the values of a whole country. Besides, Zimbabwe’s economy is sick, hence it needs foreign direct investment to recover. But if government’s way of doing business is by way of ultimatums and threats, then Zimbabwe is going nowhere with the current Zanu PF leadership.
This is the same Zimbabwe that is grappling with failure to attract investment due to poor policy implementation and fickle standpoints on the policies. We cannot have a country where leadership says one thing today and a totally different thing tomorrow.
Investors want confidence and not an economy where politicians are wielding batons every other day. President Robert Mugabe should rein in Chimene or Zimbabwe will forever be a country of small to medium enterprises — a consumer market for goods produced by other countries. That Mugabe is ageing is the story, but he must simply retire to enable other energetic leaders to emerge to resuscitate the country’s economy.
Chimene’s moment of madness shows the deficiencies of Mugabe’s leadership qualities in his hour of need due to old age. A serious leader cannot have a minister of the calibre of Chimene who treats her job no better than beer talk. She is just throwing the diamond industry into worse turmoil than ever before as no serious investor would want to put their money into the hands of such a leadership.
From being one of the highest producers of raw gemstones in the world, it is clear that the country is going nowhere. Ours is a leadership that never learns.
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Just 15 years ago they embarked on a sham land reform programme that has left the country destitute.
It is now a public secret that our northern neighbour Zambia has housed a significant number of the farmers that were chased away from Zimbabwe. Just this season Zambia is boasting of a bumper harvest. Yet, many of the farms vacated by those farmers are lying derelict, equipment looted and destroyed. The same is going to happen with the diamonds if people like Chimene are left in leadership.
We cannot have leaders that are just eager to pocket money. It is clear she and most of the current crop of leaders are not aware of what is required of their government positions. The same government that she works for owes several lenders around the world and she of all the people cannot go around threatening people with debt collectors.
It is clear she is desperate on behalf of her party and leadership to use the same money for campaigning to retain power in the forthcoming elections and lie to the electorate that it is coming from their coffers. Or rather, it will be used to purchase another fleet of top-of-the-range vehicles to flaunt in the faces of the poor. This extortionist behaviour amounts to clear disregard of the people they claim to lead.
