Zanu PF has rolled out another poll gimmick pledging to dole out 1 500 hectares of land for various youth programmes throughout the country. Zanu PF national commissar and Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere told party youths in Mbare on Sunday that a minimum of 1 500 youths in every constituency would benefit from the programme.
NEWSDAY COMMENT
There is no doubt that Kasukuwere’s message to the youth smacks of hypocrisy in that it was the same minister who ordered local authorities to stop parcelling out open spaces for housing development through what he terms land barons.
Yet, his announcement is exactly creating even more powerful land barons for Zanu PF and by Zanu PF. So has he solved the problem of land barons in Harare and across the country?
Not really, what he has simply done is to create a new problem which the local authorities will find difficult to resolve.
It is unfortunate that jostling for open spaces has already started within Zanu PF after Kasukuwere indicated he would allocate land for distribution to party youths through Harare Zanu PF chairman Charles Tawengwa, provincial youth chairman Edson Takataka, deputy youth secretary Kudzanai Chipanga and President Robert Mugabe’s nephew and Indigenisation minister Patrick Zhuwao.
Clearly, these few individuals will share the proposed 1 500 hectares at the expense of the majority whose dreams to own an urban piece of land will never be fulfilled if they do not have an affinity with Zanu PF.
Is this what the 1970s liberation war was all about?
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If indeed Mugabe ordered Kasukuwere to allocate this much land to the hungry home-seekers, he would not even tell him to create new land barons. Remember, it was the same Kasukuwere who banned co-operatives across the country and clashed with Small and Medium Enterprises minister Sithembiso Nyoni over the issue.
Does this not show lack of principle, on his part?
It is surprising how the land being distributed in MDC-T-dominated areas would have nothing to do with councils that preside over these areas.
We urge the public to be wary of Kasukuwere’s empty promises lest they are fleeced of their hard-earned money by the Zanu PF officials. Besides, events in the past have showed that Kasukuwere’s promise is one of the many made by Zanu PF to curry favour with the electorate.
Despite its stranglehold in rural constituencies, Zanu PF has failed to entice the urban electorate to vote for the party to the extent that it has to use Stone Age tactics such as firing councillors to gain a foothold on urban municipalities.
In the run-up to the 2013 elections, Zanu PF promised to deliver 2,2 million jobs by 2018. Yet, company closures have continued unabated, leading to job losses.
The Supreme Court ruling last year empowering employers to terminate contracts of employees sent home over 20 000, according to statistics from trade unions.
Mugabe has failed to eliminate corruption, with the cancer spreading at an alarming rate. The country has been reduced to a nation of vendors—thanks to government’s policies that are anti-development.
Zimbabweans would remember that in the run-up to the 2013 elections, then Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo ordered local authorities to write off rates and water bills of residents in a populist move that has seen local authorities and municipalities struggling to stay afloat.
In the end, the residents have been the losers as service delivery has gone down.
All these sad developments amply demonstrate that we have a predatory government that does not care for its citizens. It also demonstrates that politicians say nice things to cajole the electorate.
Soon the electorate will see that they have been sold a dummy. Should youths not seek advice from their elders who have testimonies of Zanu PF’s promises and lies for the past 36 years?
