Zanu PF is behaving very much like Zanu PF. The internal conflicts in the ruling party have now reached dangerous levels with the alleged plot to bomb the First Family’s dairy processing plant and arrest of a State security-linked pair last week.
By Conway Tutani
Unless, of course, this is a monumental hoax to justify a clampdown on political opponents on dubious charges of attempted assassination and treason in the raging succession wars in Zanu PF — like the dismally failed entrapment of MDC leaders by discredited Israeli double agent Ari Ben-Menashe on the payroll of Zanu PF to cripple the rising and strengthening opposition to the regime in 2002 by implicating them in a plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. It was the same in 1997 with the dubious case against friend-turned-foe Ndabaningi Sithole for conspiring to assassinate Mugabe, which also had all the elements of entrapment.
That is why when the regime alleged that former Vice-President Joice Mujuru had been fired for plotting to assassinate Mugabe prior to the Zanu PF congress in 2014, there were many more doubters than believers. People simply looked at the track record of Zanu PF and quickly made up their minds to take this with a big, big pinch of salt. You don’t have to be an incurable conspiracy theorist to see this. Resources should, instead, be spent on real cases such as the abduction of journalist-cum-democracy activist Itai Dzamara in March last year. Or on paying civil service bonuses, not like in 2002 when the regime paid Ben-Menashe a princely sum of money which could have covered a month’s supply of fuel imports at a time of crippling shortages.
So, it is not surprising at all that many people are expressing their own serious doubts as to whether the alleged attempted bombing of the Mugabe family’s dairy processing plant did actually happen because they have been sold dummies before. The regime has a bent for fabrication — pure fabrication — that has severely dented its credibility. No wonder the first reaction of the people is scepticism. But, some among us don’t want to accept that many times the nation has been led up the garden path despite all the manifest evidence.
How many other dummies have we been sold?
The farm mechanisation scheme was also “mis-sold” to the public by then Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono as the saviour of the economy whereas the loan beneficiaries were the topmost, well-connected politicians and government officials who up to now have nothing to show from the largesse and did not pay a single cent back. Liability to repay the US$1,5 billion has been offloaded by the “people’s government” on the ordinary taxpayer.
Who doesn’t know that the National Pension Scheme run by the statutory National Social Security Authority (NSSA) was also “mis-sold” when after paying into it for 22 years, you get next to nothing from it while NSSA bosses have been living it up, splashing your hard-earned money on their many girlfriends? Such conduct should meet the full wrath of the law.
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Whilst we are still at it, when did this “people’s government” last increase State pensions? Well, soon after independence when Rhodesian systems were still in place. State pensioners have received no annual increment since then, meaning their emoluments are now pitiful, a pittance.
In Zimbabwe, nothing much has been done about executive greed and gross malfeasance, including grand theft and corruption. There has been dithering after dithering with, for example, previous Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo even protecting shady and corrupt council officials from being investigated, suspended and fired by councillors. One asks: What was Chombo’s interest in all this and why was he quick at it? He was telling them: “No matter what, your job is safe.” Now is that conducive for good corporate governance?
Homeseekers were also sold dummies. Now houses are being demolished. Where were these politicians when these structuress were sprouting up? Houses are not built overnight, so Mugabe, as a frequent flier, must have seen these structures going up along Airport Road, so why didn’t he put a stop to that before they had been completed?
Who doesn’t know that the indigenisation policy has been largely — if not completely — “mis-sold” to the public as it is only the elite who have been benefiting? Even firebrand South African politician Julius Malema saw through this dummy. “Unlike how it was done in Zimbabwe, where 51% was given to individuals, (under) the so-called indigenisation policy . . . I am saying you remain the boss, but invite the workers equally to be bosses . . . I am calling for partnership with workers, not individuals,” Malema said. There is enough money to go all round us, but there is too much greed and laxity at the top.
It’s clear that politicians are very much capable of making outright lies to the public to get bad legislation passed. In Switzerland, they dealt with executive greed and corruption in one fell swoop, in one go, all at once — they let the voters decide in a referendum.
But here we are continually reminded there is one centre of power and the results are there for all to see — inaction and impunity. Tanzanian President John Magufuli has slashed government expenditure, leading from the front and leading by example by tightening the belt himself, but here all the State galas plus individuals’ birthdays that are being conflated with State occasions must go on to indulge those at the topmost. This is one of the worst examples of how the rich and powerful have become entirely egocentric megalomaniacs. We should be talking about the poor and under-served members of society, not be fed with a constipating daily diet of factionalism, a luxury that the nation cannot afford.
If they really want to kill each other, let them do it instead of selling us dummy after dummy — no one will miss them.
