This week public consultations on the Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 3 (CAB3) started across the country and Muckraker is so pleased with the huge turnouts at the venues … and the overwhelming support that seemingly normal people are giving to the whole process.
With such an overwhelming endorsement, surely who is Owner to refuse to do the Lord’s work of leading the people to the land of milk and honey? Never mind those who are claiming that the whole process is a farce, that people are being bussed in, that the 90-day consultation has been reduced to a three-hour meeting … that people are being bribed, blah, blah.
The bottom-line is that the consultation process provided for in the Party’s selective understanding of the law has been carried out.
The ground has been tested (and it is showing to be really firm enough), now even if those courts can now be instructed to rule that a referendum is needed for the amendment to take place, “the Party” is now more than confident that it will get its way.
The beauty of this route is that it lends that much-needed veneer of legality and respectability to what started off as a joke, something that Cde ZZ and the foreign-based consultant should be heartily thanked for devoting all their devilish skills to. It’s called leaving nothing to chance.
If only the painstaking and meticulous long-range planning “the Party” and its structures put into their schemes to retain power were directed towards the country’s economic development, in the same way the leaders of countries such as Singapore and Malaysia did, surely there would be no need to resort to abductions and other thuggish tactics that we see at work today.
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If they failed to learn anything from the Rhodesian settler regime, that was obviously more determined to retain power at costs than they are, then they have no capacity to learn anything at all.
Sadly, it is not that “the Party” has nothing to offer, but it is always adept at offering the opposite of what normal people would want, and for doing that, it expects nothing short of ululations.
CAB3, which is being sold as a panacea to political divisions and contested elections is proving to be more divisive and contested than the situation that it purports to be seeking to address.
Anyway, this is a country that has no shortages of ironies. If anyone died thinking that they were dying for freedom in this country, that person died for nothing … freedom is way still far away for anyone to ever talk of.
Pain and dejection
Nomsa Chaimvura, the Party’s proportional lawbreaker for Hurungwe in the National Assembly, last week brought herself to national spotlight when she angrily interjected, “Zvinei newe!” (What has that got to do with you!) when an opposition legislator wanted to know what the government was doing about striking nurses. Zimbos who are so foolish as to expect something from parliament, thought she was out of line, but if anything, it is actually them that are out of line by expecting mangoes from a guava tree.
That is the calibre of people who make “the Party” tick … people such as her, Barbara Rwodzi, Tatenda Mavetera, Cde ZZ and many some such, are the quintessential Party people. That is exactly the genetic make-up of people who, if CAB3 is to be bulldozed through, will be choosing the country’s first citizen!
Muck can really share the pain and dejection that people such as Judith Todd feel when they see the situation in this country not being any different from that which existed in the colonial era.
Deft of hand
Since the most recent steep fuel price hike (for the benefit of Zvigananda!), the shameless owners of the country have been threatening to do something about it … setting up a committee to make a show of looking into this emotive matter.
Then there has been increasingly noisy talk around increasing the ethanol-petrol blending ratio to 20% (E20) from the current 5% (E5). This one is not a solution at all, even if it is to see petrol prices being reduced from the current US$2,17 to US$2 per litre, but just a deft of hand meant to hoodwink the gullible while actually benefiting the Billy-boy and his handlers … cartels.
To an ordinary person, raising ethanol blending from E5 to E20 may look like victory at the pump, but according to experts, the maths and chemistry tells a more complicated story ... that nothing would have been done for the benefit of the motorist.
The secret is hidden in one key energy concept: MJ/L (megajoules per litre). This is simply a measure of how much energy is available in a litre of fuel, because effectively, it is this energy, not the litres, that runs the car.
In terms of efficiency, a litre of unleaded petrol contains 34.8 MJ/L, while ethanol has a mere 21.2 MJ/L.
An E5 blend means the fuel is still 95% petrol, giving slightly reduced energy ration of about 34.1 MJ/L, but when the blending increases to E20, the energy ration drops to 32.08 MJ/L. This means a motorist would require to burn more of this cheaper fuel to cover the same distance, so any price reduction brought about by increased blending would effectively be cancelled off.
Then there is the effect of this substandard fuel on the engine life, it means more regular servicing, which brings another additional cost to the motorist.
What Zimbos require is a real slash in tax, similar to those we are seeing in Namibia and other progressive countries, and if the E20 route is going to be included, at least it should not be mandatory, leaving room for motorists to choose having their petrol in unleaded form.
But because they are being held hostage by a regime that is determined to make sure that Zimbos really suffer, we are told that even buying fuel from neighbouring countries, where it is much cheaper, is now also being criminalised, because the Zvigananda want to ensure that every cotton-picking cent in the fuel sector ends up in their back-pockets!
To be on the safe side, Zimbos just need to expect nothing good from this regime. Isn’t it said that he who expects nothing won’t be disappointed?
Remember the ZBC car radio licence mischief? After some outcry over the extortionate radio licence now linked to vehicle licensing, for months there was talk of revising the fees downwards, and after these several months, when the reduction finally arrived, everyone was left with a knot of disappointment in their stomachs. The reduction threatened for months was from US$30 to US$28 … a hefty US$2 cut!
This is the people that you are dealing with! What more can one ask for?!