DURING the colonial days, some Zimbabweans went to South Africa in search of employment. They would come back home without any problems.
There was no such thing as xenophobia and embarrassing of each other.
When Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980, very few people were interested in moving down south because our economy was very stable and in sound form.
Today, it’s now a different story. If you throw a stone in South Africa, you are likely to hit a Zimbabwean and this has infuriated and frustrated the locals there.
Now they see us as a threat to their existence. We have flooded their country.
This is a problem created by Zanu PF which has resulted in all this animosity among neighbouring countries, forcing people to run away from the biting economic situation.
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This political problem must be solved through holding free and fair elections.
Our motherland is not all that bad, but we have reduced ourselves to perennial beggars in a country of plenty.
We have failed to address the root causes of our problems, which are corruption, looting and poor governance.
It’s so embarrassing that our people have become destitutes to such an extent that they cannot even access a painkiller at any of our hospitals.
We cannot continue hyping that we are in a new republic, bootlicking it for the sake of seeking favours and continuing pressing a denial button that everything is alright, yet we have a serious crisis in Zimbabwe — both politically and economically.
Our government tends to ignore pressing issues of migration and unemployment.
Hospitals and clinics are not adequately equipped. Where is the money going?
It’s pathetic that we have no cancer machines in our hospitals. Zimbabwe is now a failed State.
When members of the Presidium get sick, they are flown out of the country to seek medication. They are attended to at sound health facilities in foreign lands.
We have failed our health sector, which is the backbone of economic development.
We have burdened the South African budget while we are busy looting and diverting public funds to a cartel of political gurus.
The South African government is also to blame for its quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe.
Two years ago, a South African envoy was tasked to send a delegation on a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe, but only met the ruling party which told them that all was well.
The spirit of brotherhood should not cloud the vision and desire to attend to critical issues of governance.
This is what has killed the Sadc region. We must call a spade a spade.
Leonard Koni
Zim heads for shameful 2023 general elections
THE minister in charge of Zanu PF propaganda, Ziyambi Ziyambi, posits that raising nomination fees will improve the integrity of presidential, parliamentary and local authority candidates.
The question I would like to pose to him is: How does raising of nomination fees improve the quality of electoral candidates?
This question exposes the emptiness of the minister’s claims. The minister is trying to ventilate lies to the world.
Done correctly, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) should not charge any nomination fees, but should be funded from the fiscus for citizens to get maximum value from elections.
Zec is not a profit-making organisation to charge such exorbitant, illogical and abnormal nomination fees.
We pay taxes, not to go to Zanu PF, Citizens Coalition for Change or MDC Alliance, as is currently the case, but to fund Zec so that competent, educated and highly skilled individuals without money lead Zimbabwe to excellence.
Raising nomination fees will only guarantee that thieves and public fund looters who are contributing to citizens’ suffering, appear on the presidential, MP, and councillor ballot papers at the expense of the more competent, more educated and more skilled individuals.
Zec should not screen candidates using money, but rather use educational qualifications, proven skills and competencies to screen candidates.
Dull people do not perceive the value of education, they impose illogical barriers to electoral candidates at the expense of national excellence.
As already said, electoral candidates should pay nothing to Zec. Nomination fees should be met from the taxpayers’ monies, i.e, from the fiscus.
In the past, I have identified 25 rigging methods being used by our lawyer candidates and this is the 26th rigging method to exclude other professions from competing with them because they know they will be beaten because they are academically inferior.
Lawyers are using legal, financial and confusion barriers to block other professions from competing with them.
As it stands, only lawyers Emmerson Mnangagwa, Nelson Chamisa and Douglas Mwonzora will be on the presidential ballot paper in a country of more than 20 professions.
Sadly, such people are not even ashamed to celebrate and hold national functions to celebrate what they perceive as winning.
They expect to be congratulated by other countries and other world leaders when they win such rigged elections.
The 2023 Zimbabwean elections are going to be a monumental world circus, where only hypocrites endorse such flawed, defective and rotten elections.
It’s only fools, uneducated and unashamed academic dimwits who will declare the 2023 Zimbabwean elections free and fair.
The US$20 000 nomination fees for presidential candidates, US$1 000 for MP candidates marks the death of democracy in Zimbabwe.
Tendai Peter Munyanduri,New Patriotic Front president
Engaging youth for gender equality, leadership
A FEW days ago, I came across an article that stated that United Nations Women Mozambique, in partnership with Plan International, hosted a dialogue with 10 adolescent girls from the Inhambane, Nampula, and Cabo Delgado provinces in Maputo as part of Plan International Mozambique’s “Eu Amanhã” (Me, Tomorrow) campaign.
This is a programme inspired by the global campaign Girls for Equality, which aims to create a space where girls can amplify their voices and improve knowledge in various areas as well as learn from people who inspire them.
The overall objective of the campaign is to ensure every girl and young woman has power over her own life and can shape the world around her. A world free from discrimination, harassment, and violence.
In Mozambique, it is engaging adolescent girls aged 15 to 17, enrolled in middle and senior secondary school, in a series of activities, including high-level meetings and visits to key institutions where girls can voice their concerns, and aspirations for their future.
The adolescent girls came from different provinces in that country, some of which have been faced with an unprecedented political crisis affecting the country’s entire economy, peace and stability.
Thousands of women and girls are affected by the ongoing crises, not only in Mozambique, but across Africa, which have only exacerbated gender-related barriers such as gender-based violence and discrimination, restrictions on education, limited livelihood choices, and exclusion from participation in public life, including school abandonment for adolescent girls.
UN Women’s main intentions and investments are centred around engendering the humanitarian response to meet the needs of the most vulnerable women and girls.
The Mozambican dialogue took place at a crucial time when intergenerational solidarity and the need for collective efforts across all generations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals is necessary to leave no one behind.
Participants posed questions and expressed their aspirations for their future, highlighting the challenges that women and girls continue to face when it comes to access to education and economic freedom.
As a result of the dialogue and lessons shared by UN Women and its mandate, the girls are better equipped to exercise with confidence their own human rights and those of others in their function as young role models in their communities.
Elizabeth Khumalo