BY OBEY MANAYITI
FreeZim Congress party leader Joseph Busha yesterday described the national dialogue initiated by President Emmerson Mnangagwa as a useless exercise that will not take the country forward.
Mnangagwa recently invited losing presidential aspirants for talks to share ideas on how to move the nation out of the current challenges. Although the majority of the losing candidates responded to Mnangagwa’s call, others including MDC leader Nelson Chamisa boycotted the process.
Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, Busha said he wrote to Mnangagwa twice seeking to discuss the current situation, but he received no response. He said there was no sincerity on the national dialogue because those that responded were in fact seeking to be accommodated in Zanu PF.
“I wrote to the President to say let’s meet and have a shared vision about the country. He refused and my position is that he is scared of ideas, he is a coward from a discussion perspective,” Busha said. “Now he wants to meet a group of people that he can hide behind and woodwink the world that he is engaging other political parties. Why is he refusing to have a bilateral discussion between two people? As a country we must have national interest, a strategy and belief. It doesn’t matter who is in power, when we say this is what we want as a country. “That interparty dialogue I think it’s a useless project and I am glad that Chamisa also refused to participate because this does not take us anywhere. It’s really about trying to co-opt people that he knows want to join Zanu PF and they are looking for positions. They can never be presidents those people. That is a useless exercise.”
Busha said the Cyclone Idai disaster in Chimanimani and Chipinge areas exposed government for lack of proper preparedness, but also warned politicians trooping to the area not to grandstand over the matter.
“I don’t believe in just all of us going in there, it becomes political expediency,” he said, adding that his party was mobilising resources for the affected people.
On the economy, the FreeZim Congress leader said the new real time gross settlement currency was not sustainable because it was not backed by sustainable production and as a result people’s savings have been wiped out. The country must simply use the United States dollar alone or adopt South African Rand, he urged.
