Tsvangirai betrayed the nation to get the Highlands mansion out of greed

The story of how Morgan Tsvangirai got to own and keep the Highlands Mansion is an issue that Tsvangirai himself has failed to explain fully to the nation.

There are two issues here for him to explain: one can the nation afford such extravagant spending and two was this not a bribe?

Since 2008 Zimbabwe has rely on donors buying 98% of the nation's medical needs and the health delivery service is in such a poor state that as many as 100 children are dying a day of presentable diseases, for example. And yet the same regime is squandering $4.5 million on a mansion for its Prime Minister and a $20 million on a mansion for the President (many people believe the Blue Roof mansion is worth as much as $5 billion)? There is no doubt the rest, Deputy PMs, VPs, Ministers, etc., each got their cut of loot in accordance with their position on the feeding trough!

There can be no doubt too that getting the mansion and all the other trappings of power played a part in Tsvangirai and MDC colleagues not implementing any of the necessary democratic reforms. "Vana Tsvangirai vadzika kudya vanyerere!" (Tsvangirai and his friends have learnt enjoy the benefit of power without making a fuss!) commented one Zanu PF crony at the time as to why MDC was not implementing the democratic reforms.

"Do you want me to go and live in the bush so that you see that I am suffering just like the people out there," Tsvangirai told the Daily News on Sunday at his Highlands home last week in reply to the public outcry why he was still in the mansion since he lost the July 2013 elections.

"If at all, Zanu-PF should know that they have created conditions which have made us all poor. So comparing who is poorer than the other I think it is unfair. Yes I am living in this property. It is still an outstanding issue and will be resolved when the time comes but I never chose myself to come and live here. Remember I was prime minister, so it is under those circumstances that I then came to live here?"  

Tsvangirai is right his Highlands mansion together with all the other loot MDC (and Zanu PF) leaders have accrued are outstanding issues that must be resolved. There is no doubt that Zimbabwe cannot afford to buy its leaders such expensive luxuries when millions are dying for the lack of the most basic necessities of life.

Mugabe has encouraged a very dangerous political culture where people go into public life not to serve but to enrich themselves first and foremost. It is little wonder that politics is now overcrowded with the riff-raff and villains. We need to do some serious spring cleaning if the nation is ever to get some public spirited leaders back into politics.

What is at issue here Mr Tsvangirai is not that anyone wants you to live in the bush but that you traded the whole nation's best chance since independence to end the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship peaceful for the tyrant giving you the highlands mansion! You had a decent house in Stratehaven but your greed got the better of you. Your selfishness has condemned millions of our people to abject poverty and despair and hundreds of thousands of them will die unnecessarily. You have served the nation poorly as Prime Minister and it is only right that the nation should not reward you for your callous and cruel betrayal by allowing you to keep the bribe Mugabe paid you not to implement even one reform!